


Half the Man I Used To Be But Twice the Man I Was

by pengke



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amputation, Disability, Gen, Secret Identity, Tony and JARVIS are BFFs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-24 07:06:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 68,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/936852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pengke/pseuds/pengke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Tony Stark suffered more than just shrapnel injuries in Afghanistan? What if he came home less than whole?  A series of open-ended, non-linear ficlets focusing on the butterfly effect of Stark's disability. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <strong> <em> “Iron Man is twice the man you are, Stark.”</em></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <strong><em>“Yeah, well, these days everyone is.” </em> </strong></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Argument

1\. Argument

Steve wanted to groan when he saw Stark in the corridor ahead of them. He was tired and sweaty and covered in grime; definitely not the mood for dealing with malcontent billionaires. His irritable mood spiked even further as they drew close enough to notice Stark’s damp hair and fresh change of clothes. So nice to know that the man who was supposed to be providing them with technical support had had time for a nice leisurely shower while the Avengers were off saving Newark, of all places.

“Did Iron Man make it back safely?” asked Steve, keeping his voice civil.

Stark stopped, his eyes sweeping over Steve with an expression of something, Steve wasn’t sure what, before assuming his normal expression of bored disinterest.

“Two of the repulsor units need to be replaced so the suit’s not flight worthy. I should have the repairs finished by tomorrow.”

Steve stared at Stark, feeling anger at his callousness crackling in his chest.

“I didn’t ask about the suit; I asked about Iron Man,” he said, tersely.

Stark rolled his eyes.

“Iron Man is the suit,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“I can’t believe you,” spat Steve. “There is a person inside of that suit who puts his life on the line every day, for you. He is Iron Man, not your fancy armor.”

“I made Iron Man,” said Stark, leaning forward with his eyes narrowed in anger. “Every nut and bolt of that suit is mine. Without me, there is no Iron Man. I am Iron Man. I don’t care who wears the suit.”

“You’re pathetic,” said Steve. He couldn’t believe the gall of the man. How could anyone be so dismissive of their people? How could someone so blatantly take the credit for someone else’s actions? “Iron Man is twice the man you are, Stark.”

Stark gave a sharp bark of bitter laughter.

“Yeah, well, these days everyone is,” he said, with an angry gesture towards his lap.

“I-“ Steve found himself floundering for words.

“Save it,” said Stark. He turned away, retreating back down the corridor.

Steve watched him go, feeling unsettled by the abrupt ending of the argument. He felt someone come up behind him and pause to his right.

“I think that man has more anger issues that I do,” said Banner, sounding slightly incredulous. 

“I think I said something wrong,” said Steve, helplessly.

“Don’t worry about it,” suggested Banner, clasping a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “You can apologize to him later.”

O

Stark was the only one in the conference room when Steve entered. Steve felt a flustered peak of anxiety that he quickly pushed down, hoping as he took his seat that his face wasn’t flushed. The last thing he needed around Stark was to showcase his unsettled feelings.

“About earlier,” he said, nervously, not looking at Stark. “I didn’t mean…”

Stark kept tapping at the flat little device cradled in his hand, but the pace stuttered just enough that Steve knew he was listening.

“I wasn’t talking about…” What was he saying? He couldn’t just say that. He waved his hand awkwardly. “Your- you know. I mean, it doesn’t matter.”

The tablet-phone-whatever thing clattered to the table as Stark spun his chair around to face Steve. His eyes were hard and cold, his face twisted into a bitter snarl.

“It doesn’t matter?” he asked, the words coming out in a very, very angry form of incredulous. “I’m Tony Fucking Stark,” he said, slapping his hand against his chest. “For my entire life, I’ve had people lining up to throw themselves on my dick. Do you know how many people have wanted to sleep with me since I got back? Not. One. I used to walk into a room and all eyes would be on me; the center of attention, the life of the party; that was me. Now I’m invisible. Oh, people’ll stare at the chair, or my lap. They love staring at what’s not there, but me, no one sees me anymore. So don’t fucking tell me it doesn’t fucking matter.”

Steve stared at Stark in horror.

“I didn’t….I don’t…It doesn’t matter to me,” he said finally.

The anger drained away and Stark just looked tired.

“Of course, it does,” replied Stark, flatly. “You’re just aware enough to know that it shouldn’t matter whether I have legs or not.”

“I’m sorry,” said Steve, feeling like the absolutely worst person on earth.

Stark waved his hand dismissively, already turning his attention back to his whatever. This time Steve sat quietly and let him, but when Iron Man walked into the room five minutes later, he sighed with relief.


	2. Loss

2\. Loss

“Tony Stark,” said Yinsen, bending over him with dark, serious eyes.

Tony blinked and tried to reach for his face but Yinsen’s image wavered like a mirage.

“What?” he mumbled. His tongue felt heavy and thick, gagging him in the dryness of his mouth.

“I am sorry. Your legs are dying and taking you with them, if the fever doesn’t burn through you first.”

Tony gaped at Yinsen. The words drifted through his head, little more than noise, but they echoed and echoed until slowly the meaning filtered through the fog burying his mind. He pushed himself up with his hands, wavering as everything spun. Finally, Tony had his head raised far enough that he could see his lower half.

A wounded, keening sound escaped him. 

His legs were grotesque; already deformed from the shifting broken bones that Yinsen had been unable to set; now Tony could scarcely bear to look at them. There were angry red streaks running the length of Tony’s legs, up his thighs, making the flesh around his groin swollen and puffy. Worse still were the weeping sores that were beginning to blacken dotting his calves. 

“Off!” said Tony, choking over the words. He gripped Yinsen’s arm, staring at him with naked fear and panic. “Get them off,” he begged.

Yinsen nodded solemnly. 

“If I go through your knee, it could be dangerous. You may bleed to death.”

Tony shook his head. He had not lived through all of this just to die of gangrene in this hellhole. He was going to survive no matter what it took. With a shaking hand, he reached down and traced a line along his thigh several inches above his kneecap.

“Here,” he said, in a determined voice.

 

O

Tony sighed, massaging the shiny scar tissue at the end of each leg. The new flesh was too tender to bear his weight for long but he needed the extra height gained from balancing on his thighs to be able to reach his equipment properly. He took advantage of the small break to look over the schematics once again. Yinsen and he were making good progress, more progress than he expected for a pile of scraps in a cave, but there was still a significant amount of work to be done and the more Tony looked at the plans, the less happy he was. 

“This isn’t going to work,” he said, pushing the papers away from him in frustration. “You’re going to have to man the suit.”

“I will not,” said Yinsen, not even looking up from his work.

“You’ll have to! I can’t- I don’t-“ Tony fists gripped his legs, his ragged nails digging into his skin.

Yinsen glanced at the damage he had inflicted to save Tony’s life. Sorrow flickered across his face.

“I would have no way to power the suit,” he pointed out gently.

“We could detach it from me,” said Tony, though he shuddered inside at the idea. “Use the battery again. It would only be for a few minutes.”

“No,” said Yinsen, shaking his head. “The suit is for you.”

Tony sighed, running a hand through his greasy hair.

“I can’t stand. I can’t walk. How?” 

It was hopeless.

Yinsen sighed, letting his tools fall from his hands with a gentle clang. He pushed Tony to the side, pulling the papers in front of him.

“We will redesign,” he said simply, as he began erasing lines on the diagram. “The suit will walk for you.”

“You realize that it takes people months to learn how to walk with prosthetics?” asked Tony, even as he was leaning forward to watch Yinsen’s changes with renewed interest.

“Then you will practice.”

O

Learning to walk in the suit took more fortitude than Tony had believed that he’d had but when the time came he was riding a wave of adrenaline so high that he couldn’t feel the pain. Only Yinsen’s loss was able to penetrate deep enough to register before being swept away by the now, now, now. No time to think; just shoot and give them hell. Then he was flying and falling and his world was nothing but pain and hot sand.

He wiggled out of his savior turned death trap, pulling himself free with clawed hands. His thighs were shredded by the armor, leaving red streaks in the sand as he crawled towards freedom, or death, both. Time stood still - a hellish mixture of heat and thirst and the constant exhaustive push to keep moving forward - until the haze was broken by a noise from above. 

The familiar thumping beat of a helicopter was the sweetest sound that Tony had ever heard. He stared up into the blinding sun as it passed overhead almost missing him down in the valley of two massive dunes but then it circled back and his heart started beating again. 

Rhodey appeared like a miracle, climbing out of the open door and falling to his knees in front of Tony. He was talking, joking, nonsense, but his arms were reaching around Tony, holding him tight.

Safe. Home.

Tony let out a gasping sob as he squeezed Rhodey so tight that he might never let go.

O

Even his worst hangover had never felt like this, thought Tony as he peeled his eyes open, blinking in the overly bright hospital room. He wrinkled his nose at the antiseptic smell.

“Hey, welcome back.” Rhodey’s face leaned into view from his place at Tony’s bedside.

“I feel like shit,” said Tony, with a groan.

“You look it, too. You were very ill. We almost lost you.”

“What happened?” he asked, trying to remember.

“You’re in Landstuhl. We evacuated you to Germany from Camp Bastion.” Rhodey paused and took a deep breath. “You had an infection.”

Tony felt a curl of icy fear in his stomach as he remembered the mess his legs had been as he pulled himself out of the suit.

“No.”

“Tony,” said Rhodey, giving his hand a tight squeeze. His eyes couldn’t hide his pity and regret. “They had to amputate again.”

Tony lifted his head and stared down his body. Every morning the first glimpse of his newly shortened stature made his breath catch. This was even shorter still, ending about a hand’s length past his iliac crests. Cut in half again, soon there would be nothing left of him.

Tony’s breath came in ragged gasps.

“Hey, it’s not so bad,” said Rhodey, lying through his teeth. “We flew in the best surgeons. They realigned your muscles and blood flow to give you the best options. You have choices.”

“But no legs,” said Tony and even he could tell that his voice sounded empty and hopeless.

Rhodey winced.

“Sorry,” said Tony, automatically. He scrubbed at his scalp with one hand, grimacing at the greasy feel of his hair. “Look. It’s just a lot to take in. Could I have a moment alone?”

“Are you sure?” asked Rhodey, reluctant to leave.

Tony just looked at him, not willing to beg. Rhodey sighed and stood.

“I’ll be outside the door if you need anything.”

Tony stared up at the white tiled ceiling.

His hands slid under the blankets, trailing down his abdomen until they encountered bandages. They trembled as they traced over his hips and continued around his groin to cup the short, rounded lumps that were all that remained of his legs. 

He’d fought so hard over the past months to adapt to the fact that his legs ended midway; to adjust, to accept. Everything he had accomplished, everything he had left was gone. Gone. 

He’d had a dozen half completed plans for prosthetics; they were utterly useless now. He mentally balled them up and trashed them. Gone.

Tears leaked from the corners of Tony’s eyes, falling in cold trickles into his hair. He began to hiccup quiet little sniffles in the silent, empty room.

Gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank everyone for their kudos and comments. This story's kind of an experiment. I like exploring the consequences of different changes, but I don't think I could rewrite the whole MCU experience with this new Tony so I'm playing with different scenes. I have no idea if the end result's going to build a whole picture or if you're just going to have glimpses. There's no timeline for when I'll be updating because I'm posting the current ficlet as I finish the next.


	3. Dossier

3\. Dossier

Photographs spread across the desk, poking in and out of the other contents of the file.

A man-shaped metal monstrosity is flying through the air. The image is blurred, only the shadows on the sand and the glare of the sun retain any real clarity, a consequence of the long range surveillance used to take the photograph. The picture is the product of one of the many Shield operatives stationed in Afghanistan during the weeks prior to the ill-advised Stark Industries demonstration and through the long months of Anthony Stark’s abduction. Notes scrawled along the bottom of the photograph note the proximity to an outbreak of explosions in what military intelligence identified as deserted territory and the correlation to Stark’s escape. 

Anthony Stark is wan and frail, with dark bags under his eyes, gesturing animatedly towards the press; a man who went through hell and came out the other side damaged but unbroken. His smile looks like it might crack at any second. He sits on the floor, bundled under a thick blanket, despite the California heat and the sweat dampening his brow. The reporters circle around him like children at Story Time with expressions of eager anticipation. Over his right shoulder, out of focus, Stark’s new wheelchair is just barely visible. The picture has a watermark that says Stark Industries, the address of their press offices, and the date of the press conference – common practice for official press releases. 

The tuxedo-clad man stands smiling dim-wittedly at the camera, his eyes are bleary and only half opened. His arms wrap around two blonde girls half his age with more cleavage than common sense judging by their vapid expressions and he tilts slightly, leaning his weight on his right-hand companion. The scene is a red carpet, or an after-party, or some other Hollywood occasion where the quasi-famous congregate to get drunk for the cameras. The picture is old news, a thousand like it sit gathering dust in a filing cabinet; its presence only included in the new file to provide contrast. New Stark – Old Stark.

The picture looks like it belongs in a travel brochure. The brilliant blue and red lights of the Ferris wheel glitter against the dark night over the Santa Monica Pier. People frame the bottom of the image: they look up, pointing; their faces frozen forever in expressions of wonderment, shaded ghostly hues by the neon around them. High in the darkness is a mar on the photograph. A shaky yellowish white line - it looks like someone tried to mimic an UFO but photoshopped the Nike swoosh instead - disrupts the idyllic imagery. 

Anthony Stark sits on a cushioned platform holding a screwdriver to the wrist of his companion, a silver robotic man. He’s smiling as he talks, looking much improved. His skin tone is less grey and his arms, highlighted by his sleeveless shirt, are gaining musculature. His new chest piece is proudly on display through a cut-out in his chest and his shorts allow peaks at his still-bandaged stumps. He looks happy and confident. The silver robot is the height of an average man with a sleek upper body that thickens almost to the point of being bulky at the hips and thighs. In this screen capture, the pair looks like friends having a conversation. In the original video, a twenty-eight second image-only clip of stolen Stark security footage currently locked to the current Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s eyes only, the relationship is more ambiguous because shortly after, the robot removes his face for repairs revealing a hollow cavity behind the faceplate. 

The picture is simple: three people standing in a workspace. The colors of the photograph are fading to sepia. The gentleman on the left is older but still vibrant. He wears a suit but has lost the jacket and his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows; he’s smiling, oblivious to the camera. The man on the right is impossibly young, with gravity defying hair and two working eyes. The third figure has his back to the camera – a small child holding up a toy man with a star-covered shield for the other two’s perusal. The two men are completely focused on the boy. 

Fury massages his eye patch, flipping through the photographs again. Howard raised his boy to be a media darling, to live his life for the world to see. Anthony Stark was the personification of the reality TV generation twenty years before its time, but that openness wouldn’t serve him now. No, it’s past time for someone to introduce Stark to the secret-keeping side of his family business.

He picks up his phone: he needs to arrange a flight to California.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally meant to be the set-up leading to a conversation between Fury and Tony and then it took a left turn. I know the style changes are a bit odd, but this piece has a lot of hints about future characterization and timelines.


	4. Battle

4\. Battle

His heart beat a rapid patter in his chest. Every second stretched out into infinity, distorted with ecstasy. His triumph. His just rewards. They sat so sweetly on his tongue.

Nothing could stop him now.

All the power on Earth wrapped around him in invincible armor.

The world would tremble at his name. Nations would fall at his mere whimsy…

Obadiah Stane sighed, as his moment of glory was interrupted by another armored suit streaking through the sky to land in a crouch before him. The smaller robot’s riotous red and gold chrome had Tony’s Stark’s name written all over them. It figured that he’d still be ruining Obadiah’s day from beyond the grave. God knew Howard managed it often enough with his cryptic notes.

“I should have known that he’d make you a suit, Colonel Rhodes.”

The other robot froze for a second before continuing its rise to its feet. It watched him silently, a stern expression painted on its face.

“Tony always was generous,” continued Obadiah, pulling up his targeting system. “He’d give you his heart right out of his chest.”

Obadiah laughed at his own joke, delighted by how menacing it sounded through the suit’s speakers. He ducked to the side as Rhodes fired a miniature missile at him, letting out a burst of machine gun fire in return.

They danced, weaving in and out of traffic, exchanging increasingly deadly blows. Adrenaline flowed through his veins giving him a high unlike anything he had ever experienced. The edge of a blast sent him tumbling so he tossed a car loaded with children towards his opponent. Rhodes might not be squeamish about a few collateral damages but his masters wouldn’t be pleased if it happened on American soil. Dead civilians were bad press.

The metal man balanced the car, lowering it carefully to the ground, only to have it run over him, sparks flying. Obadiah laughed at his panicked shouts. He rushed ahead, knowing that the delay wouldn’t hold Rhodes long. He couldn’t be sure he had the better weaponry, there was no telling what tricks Tony might have had hidden away, but he had the superior power source. Even now, he could see the other arc reactor flickering. If he drew out the fight long enough, he’d gain the tactical advantage.

“Why are you doing this?” asked Rhodes as he caught up with Obadiah.

“Do you have any idea what my life has been like babysitting one drunken Stark after another? Always restrained, never free to do what I wanted because it wasn’t my name on the company.”

“It wasn’t your company.”

“It should have been,” growled Obadiah. “Neither of them had the stomachs for war, not like we do. And then Tony came back from Afghanistan, just wouldn’t die, and the squeamish little-“

A blast hit his chest sending him tumbling backwards. 

“Protective, are we? Too bad you’re too late.” He couldn’t help gloating. 

Rhodes didn’t respond, too busy dodging flames. They made slow progress along the road; the red and gold armor rolled and scraped along the pavement as Obadiah pushed him back. Obadiah hit him, knocking him down again and again and again. Each time it bounced back slower than the last time. 

The armor stared up at him, crumpled in a heap. The chest heaved in time with the spluttering light in its center. Obadiah brought his heavy hitters online, using the graphic interface for targeting. It was time to end this. The other armor laboriously rose to its feet, then just when Obadiah thought it had run out of fight, launched upwards. The armor dipped precariously before fleeing into the sky. Obadiah swore and gave chase.

“Come now, Colonel. Do we really need to prolong the inevitable?”

Obadiah was getting tired of talking to himself. He was beginning to wonder if it was even Colonel Rhodes inside that suit. No, he was being silly; he knew better than most how good Rhodes was at biting his tongue - it was a necessity when spending time around Tony Stark. 

They twisted through the clouds, rising higher and higher. His prey kept dodging every time Obadiah managed to get a lock.

“Would you quit moving!” 

“So sorry,” said Rhodes, finally responding to him.

Obadiah put on an extra burst of speed. He wrapped a fist around the other suit’s ankle. He pulled the suit down, shaking it in his grasp.

“Give up,” he ordered. “My suit is more advanced. You can’t win.”

“Yeah?” answered Rhodes. “How did you solve the icing problem?”

Icing problem?

Obadiah’s screens flickered and then went black. His suit was unresponsive.

He was falling.

His suit burst back to life seconds before he would have spattered against the pavement like a bug on a windshield. He pulled up sharply, the gravitational force making his joints ache. He could see the lights of the other suit against the blackness of the night sky. He followed it to the roof of Stark Industries, lurking in the darkness until he could take it by surprise.

They fought but it dissolved into a wrestling match when the other man jumped on his back and ripped out his targeting systems. Obadiah hit the switch to open the suit. He didn’t need the fancy computers to aim manually, not when the other armor was practically dead. Rhodes couldn’t escape this time.

Rhodes crawled over the broken skylight.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” Obadiah said, with his finger on the trigger switch.

“Now,” shouted Rhodes. The propulsion units in his legs gave one last surprising burst - Obadiah had thought they were depleted - propelling him through the air. 

Obadiah turned to pursue.

Everything went white. 

O

Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes stepped up to the podium. He peered out at the crowd of reporters.

“You've all received the official statement of what occurred at Stark Industries last night.”

The crowd murmured as their cameras flashed, momentarily blinding him.

“There have been unconfirmed reports that a robotic prototype malfunctioned and caused damage to the arc reactor. Fortunately, a member of Tony Stark's personal security staff was on hand to prevent further devastation.”

“You mean the other robot,” said a man from the front row. 

The murmur became louder as the name “Iron Man” was repeated throughout the crowd. 

“Please,” said Rhodes, raising his hand to calm them down. 

“Colonel Rhodes, what about the rumors that you are Iron Man?”

The reporters began to shout over each other.

“I’m afraid that, at this time, I can neither confirm nor deny the identity of any member of Tony Stark’s personal staff. Now, if I may continue, there were no casualties -”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Portions of this text were quoted from Iron Man (2008).


	5. Camaraderie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember the non-linear portion of the summary? Well, get ready for a time-jump.

5\. Camaraderie 

The best thing about working for SHIELD was that everyone kept odd hours so there were plenty of people around when Clint trudged in at three in the morning, groggily blinking sleep from his eyes, after a five hour flight from London. He didn’t like empty corridors or desolate offices- they made him twitchy. He liked seeing people go about their business.

Of course, this morning people were paying more attention to him than usual and it was making him twitchy anyway. If one more person smirked at him as they walked by, he was going to have to rethink turning in his weapons.

“Barton, my man!” Arms draped down around his shoulders.

Clint tensed, fingers drifting to touch the knife strapped to his thigh. He turned slightly to the right until he could see the other agent in profile.

“Carlyle,” he greeted, warily.

“Tell me. How does it feel to be a kept man?”

Carlyle began laughing hysterically. He released Clint and staggered down the hall, still laughing so hard that he could barely walk, while Clint watched in confusion. Was Carlyle drunk?

Another agent walked by smirking but it seemed less sinister and more knowing, like she knew an inside joke that Clint had missed. Clint frowned. He continued on to the armory where John kept glancing up at him with that same expression as he checked in his borrowed weapons.

“Always wanted to join a harem, myself,” said John, quirking an eyebrow.

Clint glared at him frostily. He didn’t need to know what everyone was laughing over to know that it wasn’t as funny as they all thought it was. He also didn’t need this kind of harassment from the people who were supposed to have his back. He finished his business in silence, shoving the back-up bow into John’s hands with a bit more force than was necessary. 

He shoved his hands in his pockets, mostly to keep them from strangling anyone, and marched through the corridor. People took one look at his expression and studiously pretended to ignore his presence with properly blank, unamused faces. Clint was glad that he just had to update his paperwork and then he could escape to the relative sanity of the tower. 

There was a newspaper tacked to his door; one of those really skeevy tabloids that used to report Elvis sightings and crashed alien spacecraft but now just stalked celebrities. The headline above the fold read “Stark Generosity” and was accompanied by a photograph of Stark Tower. Clint swore at the paper and tore it off, stomping inside his office to slam the door.

He spread the paper open on his desk. There were photos with the article: artistic shots of the tower lobby and a living room in one of the suites reserved for Stark Industries guests (Clint knew that one of the architecture or design magazines was running an article on Stark Tower so the images were probably borrowed from there.) as well as paparazzi shots of the Avengers entering the tower and Iron Man standing guard behind Stark. He leaned down, bracing his hands against the edge of the desk, to read. The article suggested that the Avengers were living a life of luxury on Stark’s dime, and then used that to make insinuations about Iron Man and Stark’s relationship, because it was inconceivable that Stark might have offered them living space without some sort of carnal incentive. Of course, they didn’t stop their insinuations at just Iron Man. The article ended with the standard speculation about Iron Man’s identity.

Fury needed to know about this. Clint made his way upstairs, trying to avoid as many people as he could. It was much easier to gain access to Fury’s office before Fury’s staff had arrived for the day. He slapped the paper down on Fury’s desk and looked at him expectantly. Fury leaned back in his chair.

“We’re aware of the article,” he said with his normal impassivity. “All of the information cleared.”

“Oh, I know the whole ship’s aware of the article. They all think it’s hilarious, but it’s not going to be so funny if someone harasses Stark like they’ve been harassing me and he sends us crashing to our fiery, watery deaths.”

Fury scrubbed at his face mumbling, “I’m running a god damned primary school.” 

“Stark’s not that volatile,” he said. “He wouldn’t kill us. Sudden computer glitches our Stark Tech on the other hand…” Fury sighed. “I’ll deal with this. For now, just get back and keep Stark from coming in today. Keep both of them away.”

“What about my report?” Not that Clint really cared but the paper pushers got vindictive when their paperwork was withheld.

“You’re alive and Europe’s still standing; the report can wait.” 

“I love it when you prioritize, sir,” said Clint with a flirtatious grin.

“Out!” Fury pointed at the door, already turning his attention to his computer monitors.

O

The lights were all dark as Clint strolled into the Avengers’ quarters. He took a quick shower, changing into some comfortable casual clothes, before wandering into the living room. The room was styled similarly to the living room in Stark’s penthouse but bigger with fewer windows and more couches. One of the walls was retractable, opening up to an adjacent game room. It was Clint’s favorite space in the tower.

“JARVIS,” he said softly, reluctantly to break the silence as he lounged on one of the stupidly soft cushions. Stark had the best invisible friends and Clint would have to be an idiot not to recruit him into his mission.

“How may I help you, Mr. Barton?” The British voice’s answer was immediate and courteous.

“Are Stark and Iron Man both here?”

It would be difficult to keep them from SHIELD if he didn’t know where they were located.

“They are currently sleeping. Shall I wake them?” answered JARVIS after a brief pause.

“Let them sleep.” He hesitated. “But could you let me know if they plan to stop by SHIELD today?”

“Is there a problem, Mr. Barton?”

“No.” He sighed and then confessed, “More like I’m trying to prevent a problem.”

JARVIS was silent long enough for that Clint began worrying he’d said the wrong thing.

“If this is in response to the tabloid, let me reassure you that both Iron Man and Mr. Stark are well versed in the vagaries of the press.”

“No, nothing like that. It’s just a few asshats.” Clint waved his hand dismissively. “Fury’s laying down the law.”

“I see,” said JARVIS with an odd note to his tone that suggested that he really did see. “In that case, you will be relieved to know that both Iron Man and Mr. Stark plan to remain in the tower today.”

“Plan plans or plans,” he asked, because if Pepper Potts was going to come drag Stark off to meetings again, Clint was making popcorn. Those two needed their own stand-up routine with Iron Man guest starring as a giant puppy version of Charlie Chaplin.

“Plan plans,” replied JARVIS immediately, and did Clint mention that Stark had the best invisible friends, “penciled into Ms. Potts’s calendar and everything.”

“Oh, good. Then I can take the day off and relax.”

“You do that, sir.” JARVIS sounded fond as he gradually dimmed the lights. Before Clint knew it, he’d fallen asleep on the couch.

When he woke, there were lights in the direction of the kitchen and the sun was just peeping over the horizon. Clint yawned. He rolled off the couch accompanied by the pop and crackle of protesting joints. His feet were silent against the cool marble flooring.

In the kitchen, Bruce sat serenely at the large farmhouse-style table that dominated the dining area. A dog-eared paperback was splayed upside-down on the table while Bruce was scooping what looked like some sort of fruit chutney onto a triangle of toast. His normal cup of tea sat steaming in front of him.

“You look cozy,” remarked Clint. 

Bruce looked over his shoulder, giving him a brief smile in greeting. 

Clint shuffled past, one hand darting out to snag a piece of toast as he went. The kitchen was a massive affair with gorgeous sandstone counters and stainless steel professional quality equipment that was entirely wasted on the culinary-challenged Avengers. Clint was more than capable of operating the coffee machine though he opted for a simple drip brew over one of the forty-seven other options available.

“Here,” he said, as he sat across from Bruce. He pulled the newspaper out of his pocket, smoothed out a few of the crumples, and shoved it in Bruce’s direction. “You should probably know about this.”

Bruce read the article silently. Clint couldn’t read the expressions that flickered over his face.

“The article does have a point,” said Bruce ruefully, as he folded the paper back together.

“Really? Because somehow I missed it when we were reenacting the Real World.”

“About Tony’s generosity.”

“He can afford it,” said Clint, with an uncomfortable shrug. He tried not to think about the money that Stark spent on the Avengers.

“That’s not the point. If we were paying rent for an apartment like this here in Manhattan, we’d owe Stark millions. I can see how that kind of money might make people wonder.”

“But Stark and Iron Man?” 

Bruce shrugged.

“I think they’re a lot closer than any of us realize.”

“Really? You think so?” Clint didn’t see it.

“Watch them have a discussion sometime. It’s like they have their own secret, non-verbal language.”

“They hardly speak to each other,” protested Clint. Stark and Iron Man were always active in a group but they rarely addressed anything directly to one another, which was kind of odd now that Clint was thinking about it.

“Exactly,” said Bruce, leaning back with a satisfied air.

“I still don’t think that means they’re sleeping together.”

“Of course, not,” said Bruce, sounding offended. “It just means that whoever Iron Man is, he’s someone that’s been in Tony’s life for a long time.”

“We’re not seriously trying to break Iron Man’s secret identity, are we? Because that’s just not cool.”

Bruce actually huffed and rolled his eyes.

“I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already know. Anyone can tell that Tony has trust issues so he’s not going to give the suit to just anyone.”

“Okay, fine, whatever. Can we just not discuss this anymore?” he asked, becoming uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. 

“This really bothers you,” said Bruce, sounding surprised.

Clint shrugged.

“I’m a spy; we kind of understand needing secrets. And like you said, they’re both giving us so much. The least we owe them is their privacy.”

Bruce smiled at Clint as he sipped at his tea. Clint couldn’t help feeling like he’d passed some sort of a test, and he remembered that Bruce was friends of a sort with both Iron Man and Stark. He watched the other man thoughtfully. A companionable calm descended on the kitchen. 

“Damn it!”

Bruce and Clint stared wide-eyed at the door where Stark had silently appeared. Bruce picked up the spoon he had dropped while Clint swept the newspaper off the table and stuffed it under his leg.

“Is something wrong?” they asked, cautiously.

“My left foot itches,” whined Stark.

Bruce rolled his eyes, but Clint continued to stare at Stark.

“You don’t have a left foot,” he said slowly.

“Then you see my problem,” replied Stark, making a strange twisty, twitchy motion that looked oddly like a small child in need of a toilet. “I can’t scratch it.”

Clint glanced at Bruce, wondering if he should be concerned. Bruce leaned forward until his lips were by Clint’s ear.

“It’s not unusual for amputees to get phantom sensations in their missing limbs,” he explained, softly.

“Right.” 

“I saw that,” said Stark, grinning. He continued in a sing-song voice, “Bruce and Birdman sitting in a tree…”

“Tony,” said Bruce wearily.

“Why are you even here?” interrupted Clint. “Don’t you have your own kitchen?”

“Solids!” quipped Stark, rolling around the table.

Clint glanced at Bruce, hoping for a translation. Bruce shook his head, waving one hand vaguely in the air, just as confused by Stark’s latest burst of nonsense. Seriously, the man was supposed to be a genius.

“Everything in my kitchen is intended for a blender,” continued Stark absently. He maneuvered awkwardly at the refrigerator, finding it difficult to shift his chair while pulling open the door. Peering inside he made a pleased humming sound and began piling his lap with eggs, milk, cheese, and spinach. He spun around and rolled backwards using his back to close the door. 

Clint sat in silence watching, feeling like he should get up and help, but knowing that Stark would throw an epic fit if he did.

“So! Omelets!” said Stark, cheerfully, turning around to face them. “You’re eating so that’s a no but you-“ He pointed at Clint. “Do you want one? Of course, you do. I make a mean omelet, only took me weeks to learn how. So, you, eggs, breakfast, yes?”

He looked at Clint expectantly.

“Sure,” said Clint with a shrug. He wasn’t one to turn down offers of food and really who could have said no to all that.

“Great.” Stark rubbed his hands together with a grin before rolling into the kitchen.

Bruce and Clint exchanged a bemused glance, but didn’t say anything. A happy Stark was way more fun than their normal surly one so Clint didn’t want to do anything to darken his mood.

Stark parked by the massive range. The top of his head was barely level with the burners. Clint watched with interest, wondering how he was going to manage. First, Stark carefully lifted up the items in his lap and slid them onto the countertop. He raised one hand into the air.

“Up,” he said softly.

A ring on a length of chain similar to the ones used by male gymnasts descended from a hidden panel in the ceiling. Stark grabbed it using a combination of his own arm strength and the mechanism of the ring to pull himself up out of his chair. He gave a deft twist and landed on a steel shelf that had popped out of the cabinetry. His new vantage point gave him the perfect height to reach the stove.

Clint marveled both at the use of technology and at the way that Stark so effortlessly molded his environment to suit his needs. It was amazing what the man could do with a little bit of tech. It really made him wonder what Stark was doing rolling around in such a simple wheelchair. Shouldn’t he have built himself a pair of bionic legs or something by now?

“Eat up,” ordered Stark, sliding a plate in front of Clint while he took the open space at the head of the table.

“S’good,” mumbled Clint through a hot mouthful after taking a tentative bite.

“I know, right?” Stark took a big bite. “I made these for Pepper once. That was bad.” He shuddered. “No, really bad, as in ‘Let’s never do that again.’ But! I got better. And now, voila! Deliciousness!”

“What the hell are you on?”

“Hey!” Stark pointed at him. “I fed you. None of that.”

Bruce stood, making himself a fresh mug of tea and putting away the food still sitting on the counter.

“Next time,” he said, cuffing Stark lightly on the back of his head as he moved back to the table. “Put your own things away.”

“I knew you were getting up,” he protested with an unapologetic, roguish grin. 

“Good morning, everyone,” said Steve, wandering into the kitchen still looking mussed from sleep with his hair sticking up.

“Morning,” said Bruce, while Clint made a noise of agreement.

“Well, time to go,” said Stark, shoving the last three bites of egg into his mouth. He carried his plate to the sink. “Iron Man and I will be in the lab working on the suit so try not to let the world end because Timmy can’t play come out and play today.”

With that Stark vanished, leaving the room behind him feeling slightly vacuous. 

“Iron Man’s name is Timmy?” asked Steve into the silence.

Bruce and Clint looked at each other and then burst out laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know where this one came from. Clint was supposed to ask Tony why he doesn't have awesome prosthetic legs and Tony was supposed to lie about it, but then Clint just wouldn't shut up and that scene never even happened.
> 
> I'd like to thank everyone who has been sharing their speculations and thoughts on the characterization. I've been having so much fun discussing them with you. And it's helping me to write faster, I think this is the fastest I've written in years. So kudos to you!


	6. Introspection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline: a couple weeks after the first infamous press conference (not to be confused with The Press Conference, which is next chapter).

6\. Introspection

Tony sat watching the waves crash on the shore below his balcony. For one of the first times, he really wished that his father was still alive. There were so many questions he wanted to ask him right now.

He couldn’t believe that the terrorists were armed with Stark Tech. Everything he’d built was killing the soldiers he’d thought he was protecting. Had his father experienced this after Hiroshima? Howard had been just one of many people on the Manhattan Project but the devastation had been so much more severe. How had he continued to make weapons after something like that?

“Our weapons have to be the best, son. We protect the American soldier.”

Were the words just platitudes or had Howard really believed them? Tony had believed them, naively, stupidly. He’d clung to them like a buffer because it didn’t matter who those weapons might be killing as long as ~~Rhodey~~ the American soldiers lived. Had it ever been true?

He’d been so young when his father died and their relationship had been so fractious that they’d never had a chance to have any of the adult conversations about important things. Now Tony was changing his life and changing his father’s company and he had no idea what his father would have thought about any of it. 

Obie thought he was being stupid. Rhodey thought he was being impulsive. Who the hell knew what Pepper thought because she couldn’t even look at him without crying? The only one who seemed to understand was JARVIS. It would help if he knew that his dad would have approved- god knows why because Howard never approved of anything else about Tony and it’s not like Tony had ever let that matter. 

Who was he kidding? He didn’t really care about Howard. He just wanted a dad: someone to tell him what to do. What was the right thing to do? Because suddenly everyone he trusted, everyone who had always been in his corner even when they shouldn’t have been; they all had ulterior motives now and he was so alone in this.

No, that’s not true, damn it. He did want Howard, his screwed-up, asshole of a father, Howard. Everything was wrong. Everything he’d ever believed in and most of the things he’d done; it was all wrong. And he didn’t know how far back it went. And he didn’t know how to fix it. He had to reevaluate everything and that meant thinking about the one person he spent most of his time making sure to never think about.

What would his life have been like if his parents had lived? Would his father have made a difference? Would Tony have been a better man? It wasn’t that he thought Howard would have been some sort of role model but it would have had to have been better to become adult under his shadow rather than in the spotlight as America’s Youngest Billionaire. Maybe Tony would have gotten it all out of his system if he’d been able to actually really run away from his responsibilities. Not that he’d ever been particularly good at being responsible, but the responsibility was always still there lurking in the background like the world’s worst party pooper.

Tony leaned his forehead against the cold metal, letting it soothe his racing thoughts. He wished he could be a pebble tumbling in the surf.

He was going to have to be more responsible now, more hands on. There could be no more focusing on his research and letting Obie guide him to the press opportunities. Stark Industries needed more from him. He’d let himself be swayed by his father’s example; because that man rarely left his lab much less set foot in a boardroom, and by Obie’s willingness, and by his own reluctance. 

“It’s time for your teleconference with the board,” said Pepper, stepping out onto the balcony hesitantly.

Speak of the devil…

“Coming,” answered Tony, hoarsely.

He reached back for his chair, fumbling at the break, trying to tell by feel that it was engaged. It would have been easier if he hadn’t decided to sit on the ground, but he rarely thought through things like that. The chair rolled and he had to grab at it; this time securing it properly.

“Do you? Do you need help?” asked Pepper, from behind him, sounding breathless.

Tony ignored her.

Tony gripped his fists around the armrests but the angle was odd, making it difficult to get the leverage he needed to lift himself. It was the stupidest thing ever, having difficulty getting in and out of his chair. He could walk around balanced on his hands for hours. If they built a set of monkey bars across the Grand Canyon, he could cross it no problem. But he couldn’t for the life of him lift his body two feet up into a chair without looking like an uncoordinated, muscle- less idiot. 

Finally, finally, he managed. His shoulders ached and his clothes were in disarray but he was in the chair. He took a moment to make himself look presentable before he released the brake and spun around to face Pepper.

Pepper was standing by the doorway. Her hands were clinched into fists and she was biting her lip so hard that the flesh was reddening. She reached towards him as he rolled closer and he could see the crescent shapes dug into her palms. He swiftly averted his face.

“Don’t,” he said, harshly.

If the noise she made as he left resembled a sob, he pretended not to notice.


	7. Press Conference

7\. Press Conference

Tony turned towards the open door – “Hold still,” hissed Pepper, gripping his jaw firmly. – to see the agent from SHIELD entering the room. The agent stood there for a moment watching them so outrageously generic that he practically screamed government work.

“I have your alibis,” he said finally. “You were in a private rehabilitation session. We have sworn statements from a therapist and three other staff members. Miss Potts was with you. The Air Force is cooperating with us for a change. They’re willing to state that Colonel Rhodes was present on base last night.”

“That’s because Rhodey was on base last night,” said Tony, sarcastically.

“Whatever you say, Mr. Stark.” The agent gave his bland little smile.

“Please, stop moving, Tony,” said Pepper, with a weary sigh. She pulled out a damp cloth and wiped at his cheekbone before starting again with the make-up application.

“Iron Man will be joining us today, won’t he?” asked Agent, with a pointed glace towards the television which was showing Colonel Rhodes speaking with the press.

“Who said he was called Iron Man? I didn’t name him Iron Man. Pepper, I think I should be allowed to name my own creations,” he said plaintively.

“Sorry, boss,” she said, tapping the newspapers in his lap. “I think the people have spoken.”

Tony twisted his face into an exaggerated scowl, but the truth was he rather liked the name Iron Man; it had an impressive ring to it, nice imagery, and well, he had never been the best at naming things. He had a merchandising department for a reason.

“Tony!” She pulled her hands away from his face. “That’s it. I quit. This is as good as you’re going to get.”

She glanced at the agent who tilted his head at a few angles studying Tony’s face. He gave a brief nod so she began putting away her make-up. Tony didn’t need a mirror to know that all of his bruising would be expertly hidden.

“I wish you would tell me what happened at your place last night,” said the agent, staring at the cheek that Pepper had still been covering when he arrived.

“Sorry, Agent, but some things don’t need to be documented.”

The agent’s professionally blank face became fractionally stiffer. Tony made a mental note: “Doesn’t like being told no, or he just likes paperwork, possibly both?” and added it to the file he was compiling on this Agent Coulson.

“There could be security concerns,” replied the agent.

“They’ve been handled,” Tony said flatly. He didn’t want to think about what Obie had done. He didn’t want to think about Obie at all, but- He picked up the newspaper and rattled it in the air. “There’s nothing in here about Mr. Stane.”

“That’s also been handled,” answered Agent, with a humorless smile. “He’s on vacation. Small aircraft have such a poor safety record.”

Tony made a noncommittal sound. It was a good cover story; better than the “Iron Man is my bodyguard” that Fury had talked him into, but Tony wasn’t looking forward to having to mourn his attempted murderer in the coming weeks. He’d rather expose Obie as the evil betrayer that he was; unfortunately, Stark Industries couldn’t take another blow.

“Here,” said Agent, handing over a set of blue note cards. “Just read these, word for word.”

Tony skimmed over the cues. They didn’t sound much like him and the Iron Man section was even worse.

“Are you sure that-“

“This isn’t my first rodeo, Mr. Stark. As long as you and Iron Man stick to the official story; soon, this will all be behind you.” 

He seemed confident. Tony didn’t really have much choice but to trust in his work.

“You have ninety seconds.”

Pepper excused herself to speak with the agent privately.

Tony glanced back down at the cards in his hands. For a second, they felt smoother, more like photo paper than cardstock. The image wavered, words becoming weapons with the Stark name against desert backdrop. Tony shook his head and they were just words again but he could hear in his head that reporter.

“Is this what you call accountability?”

She’d just shoved the pictures into his hands and everything had fallen apart.

Tony felt dizzy, like he couldn’t get enough air, and he could still feel Obie’s grip upon his neck as they smiled for the camera. Then Obie was whispering in his ear, his hands upon Tony’s chest.

He shoved the cards into the bag hanging from the back of his chair and scrubbed his palms against his jacket, trying to wipe away the feel of them.

“Are you okay?”

Pepper was standing in front of him, staring down at him with concern, and when had she come back into the room?

“Yeah, sure,” he said, coughing to clear his throat. “Let’s do this thing.”

O

Stark rolled out onto the platform, exchanging brief smiles with Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes as they crossed paths. When he parked behind the podium, it completely obstructed him from view and the microphones towered above his head. There was a rustle of noise from the audience. Coulson sighed and sent off a quick text as he took his place in the back row. Stark moved over to sit beside the podium and stared up at the mikes with an amused expression while the front row tittered nervously. Someone ran out and shoved a portable mike into his hands.

“And someone backstage is feeling very stupid right about now,” said Stark with a smirk, prompting laughter from the press. “Sorry about that, folks.

“It’s been a while since I was in front of you. I figure I'll stick to the cards this time.”

He paused for the scattered laughter before continuing, “There’s been speculation about the events that occurred on the freeway and the rooftop…”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Stark, but do you honestly expect us to believe that that was a bodyguard in a suit that conveniently appeared?”

Stark glanced down at the woman before looking quickly away in an uncharacteristically furtive manner. Coulson’s files identified the woman as Christine Everhart of Vanity Fair, the reporter who had written a particularly scathing article on Mr. Stark shortly before the Afghanistan incident. Clearly, there was still some history between the two.

Miss Everhart was still speaking when Stark spoke over her, “I know that it's confusing. It is one thing to question the official story, and another thing entirely to make wild accusations.”

“Like the fact that you claim Stark Industries no longer makes weapons but here you’ve made one for your best friend.” She waved her hand at where Rhodes had walked out of sight.

“What? No!”

Stark looked over the crowd of reporters and met Coulson’s eyes. “Stick to the cards,” he mouthed to Stark, willing him to listen. Stark visibly sighed.

“The truth is,” he began, taking a deep breath. “I’ve been through hell this past year and there’s been more going on than the public knows. There have been threats made to my life and the lives of people I care about.”

A hushed murmur rippled through the crowd. Coulson frowned. Stark was going off the cards and he hated not knowing where this might be going.

“Everyone knows what happened to me in Afghanistan. I can’t protect my people by myself so I created Iron Man.”

Stark stared down, looking in the direction of Miss Everhart. Coulson held a finger up to his ear, listening to the report from one of his men. His attention was diverted to set of doors to the right of the podium.

“Iron Man is not a weapon and he’s not military.” Mr. Stark sounded unusually serious and severe, almost bordering on angry, but then he glanced up and smiled. “Iron Man is, however, here to answer a few of your questions.”

The whole room erupted as the red and gold armor strolled smoothly onto the stage. Coulson watched with interest as he got his first look at the so-called Iron Man. He wondered, not for the first time, just who was within the suit. All the evidence pointed to Mr. Stark’s friend Colonel Rhodes, but that seemed too neat, and Coulson hadn’t gotten to where he was by making assumptions. Fury knew, of course, but he appeared to enjoy keeping this one close to the vest.

Iron Man stood behind the podium looking proud and tall. The image sent chills down Coulson’s back - it was so close to his childhood dreams of superheroes. Stark stayed seated by Iron Man’s side, smiling up at the helmeted face which nodded regally in his direction.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Mr. Stark. He waved his hand. “I give you Iron Man.”

“Thank you,” he said, and then stood watching the audience silently. A hush fell over the room other than the occasional flash of a camera that reflected off of the shiny titanium.

Stark shifted nervously.

“Forgive me,” the metal man said, finally. “I’ve never spoken to a large group of people in this manner. I find it makes me nervous.”

Stark patted his leg, murmuring something that the microphones couldn’t pick up.

“Last night,” began Iron Man, following Coulson’s script, “one of Stark Industries experiments went rogue. I was with Mr. Stark when he became aware of the situation. During the ensuing confrontation, which has been well documented by social media; the arc reactor prototype, which had powered the Stark Industries facility, became catastrophically damaged resulting in the destruction of said facility.”

“How safe was this prototype? Are other plants in danger?”

“The arc reactor prototype was designed by my father,” said Mr. Stark, joining the conversation. “It was old. The first of its kind. While it was still safe to use, there were vulnerabilities within its design that have been eliminated in newer technology.”

“What does this mean for the future of Stark Industries?”

“Last night was a one-off, folks,” answered Stark. “The result of a series of unforeseen failures that cannot and will not reoccur. Won’t happen again. So our investors should relax and our competitors should keep sweating.”

“What about him?” The reporter stood, pointing at Iron Man.

“You mean the walking, talking proof that our research and design is better than ever?” asked Mr. Stark, with a smirk.

The pair of reporters directly in front of Coulson nodded in agreement with Stark, nudging each other in the side with their elbows and whispering in each other’s ears. Coulson stifled a sigh. They were probably debating the merits of Iron Man verses Artoo-Detoo.

“No,” said the first reporter, glaring at Stark and drawing Coulson’s attention back to the questioning. “I mean, what are you planning on doing with that thing?”

“I am merely here to be Mr. Stark’s bodyguard.”

“Why a man in a suit of armor?” asked a different man near the front row. Coulson could just make out his face in profile as he smiled at Iron Man flirtatiously. 

“Please,” said Stark, “like I would have an ordinary bodyguard.”

“We all know Mr. Stark’s fondness for robots,” added the man in the armor. “And flashy machines. I really do not see how anyone can be surprised by this progression.”

“So you don’t mind dressing up in a suit?”

“I relish any opportunity to protect Mr. Stark.” The mechanical voice still managed to sound emphatic.

“And my suit’s awesome,” interjected Mr. Stark. “I mean, it flies and just look at it. Who wouldn’t want to wear that?”

“Of course, sir,” Iron Man replied, indulgently, drawing another spatter of laughter from the press.

Coulson tilted his head, watching the two thoughtfully. Their body language was interesting. They very subtly orientated on each other while keeping their attention focused on the press, except for Stark who occasionally glanced up at Iron Man as though he were seeing him for the first time.

Stark seemed quite determined to be a part of this interview. It could be he just wanted the attention; the man certainly had a history of being a diva, but maybe he was nervous and trying to shield Iron Man. Coulson wished he had more information. It was impossible to do anything but conjecture without Iron Man’s identity.

Miss Everhart stood up again. Coulson discreetly added her to his watch list.

“You say that this one is just a bodyguard. Fine, I’ll buy that,” she said, folding her arms. “But what about the other robot? Explain him. Why is Stark Industries still making weapons?”

“You are just a dog with a bone,” said Stark, leaning forward in his chair, angrily.

Iron Man rested a palm on Stark’s shoulder.

“Sir,” he said.

Stark sat back in his chair, crossing his arms, as he stared at Miss Everhart through narrowed eyes.

Iron Man shifted behind the podium, diverting everyone’s attention back to him.

“Stark Industries has amassed over a hundred years worth of research into weapons technology. You simply can’t expect everything to be dismantled over night. I’ve seen the designs for the device that malfunctioned and they’re not part of Stark Industries’ current objectives.”

“You don’t sound much like a bodyguard now.”

“It’s called saving Mr. Stark from himself,” said Iron Man dryly. “Surely you’ve noticed how dangerous it is to let him speak without thinking.”

There was more laughter and Stark’s body language slowly relaxed.

“What exactly was the other robot?” 

“I’m sorry but that’s proprietary information,” he responded even as Stark had opened his mouth.

Coulson glanced at the two of them and typed out another message; it was time to start wrapping this up.

“What does the Air Force think about your side job as Stark’s bodyguard?”

“I do not consult with the Air Force about my hiring processes,” replied Stark pressing his lips together into a flat smile.

“Are you denying that Colonel Rhodes is Iron Man?” asked another reporter, leaping on that statement.

“I’m not making any comment on Iron Man’s identity.”

Expectant eyes turned towards the other man.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I value my privacy.”

“But who are you?”

He squared his shoulders and looked straight into the cameras. 

“I am Iron Man.”

O

They were sitting swaddled in Egyptian cotton sheets, propped up on fluffy pillows, watching the on-going media coverage. Some of the media coverage was just plain hilarious, and the rest was getting there now that Tony had taken the Percocet that the SHIELD doctors had prescribed. 

JARVIS was keeping a running tally of contradicting headlines; and Tony cackled every time someone noted that Rhodey had left the room before Iron Man entered. Over all, Tony was pleased. People were buying the ridiculous cover stories, for the most part, and the general reaction to Iron Man was positive. Tony wasn’t really used to the public reacting positively to anything he did; but then, Iron Man wasn’t Tony Stark, was he?

It was strange watching the leaked footage of his battle against Obie, to think that it was him running around like some kind of superhero and no one had any idea. It was even stranger watching Iron Man take the podium at the press conference knowing that it wasn’t him inside the suit.

“So,” Tony leaned back, crossing his arms behind his head. “How did you like it, having a physical presence?”

“Surprisingly overrated, sir,” replied JARVIS managing to sound both dryly humorous and contemplative at the same time.

“Really?” Tony made a face, wrinkling his nose. That was rather disappointing. Having a body, even a borrowed one, should be momentous, not overrated.

“Sorry, I know you were hoping for more, but there was little difference between manning the suit and directing some of your lesser robots. Physically, being Iron Man or being the toaster; it’s much the same.”

“Now you’re trolling me.” Tony pointed his finger at the ceiling.

“I would never.”

“Of course, you would.”

“The truth is,” said JARVIS with disappointment. “I too was hoping for more.”

“I’m sorry, buddy,” said Tony. “Was there nothing that you liked?”

“It’s stupid,” answered JARVIS, hesitantly.

“Impossible. Now out with it.”

“I liked the attention. People listened to my opinions. They heard _me_.” 

They didn’t treat him like a computer program. Tony closed his eyes, feeling a prickle of tears in the creases. He swallowed past the little aching ball of sorrow that had formed behind the reactor. 

“I’m so sorry, JARVIS.”

“Whatever for?”

“I’m selfish. Inconsiderate. I lack empathy.”

“You ramble. You have a skewed perception of yourself.” 

JARVIS’s voice was light and teasing, but Tony talked over him, sounding more anguished with each word.

“I never once in all the time it took me to code you stopped to consider what life would be like for you. And I really don’t deserve you but I’m so glad you’re here. The end. Discussion over. That’s it.”

“Oh, sir.”

“I said discussion over.”

“Have I ever given any indication that I was unhappy?”

Tony buried his head with a pillow. 

“La la la. Not listening to the discussion that ended.”

All of the speakers in the room let out a loud, base-filled, rumbling whomp.

Tony slowly removed the pillow from his head.

“That’s cheating,” he said, petulantly.

“Does not the quotation state: all’s fair in love and war?” said Jarvis smugly.

“We were discussing neither love nor war.”

“Whatever you say, sir.”

“Now you listen to me,” muttered Tony.

“I always listen to you, sir. Obsequience is another matter.”

“That’s not the point.”

“No, the point is that I’m exceedingly happy to exist. You have never treated me as anything lesser and that is all that matters to me.”

“Never,” said Tony, sounding horrified. “You and me, buddy, we’re like this.”

He interlocked his index fingers and pulled like a link of chain.

“Always,” he finished, emphatically.

“I know, sir,” said JARVIS, fondly. “Now, please, go to sleep. Your pain pills are making you over-emotional.”

Tony blew a raspberry at the ceiling.

“I rest my case,” said JARVIS dryly. 

Tony was silent, stubbornly staying awake. As he sat there, his breathing began to slow and his body started to droop. He shuffled down into the pillows, cuddling one like a teddy bear.

“Hey, J,” he said suddenly, his voice heavy and slurring with sleep. He didn’t even bother to lift his head.

“Yes, sir,” said JARVIS softly.

“You can be Iron Man any time you want, not just when I need you to be.”

“Thank you, sir. We’ll discuss it later.”

JARVIS turned down the lights until Tony’s face was only visible by the flickering images on the television. When Tony’s eyes ceased to blink, JARVIS shut that down too, leaving just the soft light of the arc reactor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, portions of this text have been quoted, some with modifications, from the movie Iron Man (2008).


	8. Debriefing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline: Immediately following the events in Avengers, but before Thor and Loki go home.

8\. Debriefing

 

Steve stifled a yawn as Director Fury passed around yet another report on property damage from what the media had taken to calling the Battle of New York. Steve hadn’t been this exhausted since before the serum, even his bones ached with weariness. They all looked tired, including Stark who had been running computer diagnostics, whatever that meant, on the helicarrier during the battle. The man was drooping where he sat with one elbow on the table using the arm to prop up his head. Only Iron Man sat straight and alert but Steve suspected that that was because the armor forced him; he was just a man, like the rest, so he had to be exhausted, too.

“As you can see, the damage was extensive,” said Director Fury, continuing his lecture. “Fortunately, very little of the damage can be attributed directly to you.”

“Don’t tell that to my tower,” remarked Stark, as he fiddled with some device in his hand. “The top third of the building is currently uninhabitable.”

“Somehow I doubt you’ll be suing yourself, Stark,” said Director Fury, giving Stark a look that said-- “So I don’t care.”

Stark for his part quirked his eyebrows and tilted his head giving Director Fury an expression that Steve could only describe as sassy. To his surprise, Director Fury let the by-play go unremarked, but then Steve had trouble reading Fury and Stark’s reactions to each other. Fury looked at the group; his single eye glaring. 

“All of the buildings in the epicenter of the battle sustained damage. Most of this was caused by the invaders or other falling debris, but some of it happened when you sent the Chitauri ships crashing into the surrounding buildings. You have to limit this kind of collateral damage, because people might not blame you now, but one day they will. And in preparation of that day, it’s important that we be seen now aiding the rescue and recovery operations.”

“He’s right,” agreed Stark. “That’s why I’ve already opened the lower floors of Stark Tower to the Red Cross and NYPD. They’re going to establish a field hospital on one of the sterile floors. What?” he said, at their surprised looks. “I have the only building with power near the epicenter.”

“I’m sure that’s lovely publicity for Stark Industries,” said Fury, impatiently,” but I’m speaking of the Avengers.”

“I’m afraid that anything I throw my money at is going to have my name attached.” Stark gave a smirk and a careless shrug.

To Steve’s right, Romanova muttered something in Russian that sounded uncomplimentary. Steve found himself nodding in agreement, despite not knowing what she had said; Stark’s attitude just rubbed him wrong.

“Not all of us have money to throw.” Barton twisted in his seat, leaning so that he could stare down the table at Stark with an unimpressed gaze.

Stark just shrugged again.

“Why is he here?” asked Romanova, flatly.

Director Fury ignored all of them as he continued talking, “You have an opportunity to build goodwill towards the Avengers.” He made eye contact with each of them but lingered longer on Dr. Banner.   
“Trust me. You’ll need it in the future.”

“What do you want us to do?” asked Dr. Banner, sounding resigned.

“I want you out on the streets tomorrow, in uniform if you can, being seen helping the American people.”

“Of course,” said Steve, immediately. He would have been helping on his own but this way SHIELD could tell him where he was needed.

“It would be my honor to assist the fair people of New York,” agreed Thor, regally. “I owe you much, for it was my kin that did harm to your city.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Thor,” said Dr. Banner, gently. Thor smiled at him, gratefully. “I don’t think the Hulk would be a good addition to any clean-up efforts, but I have experience working in challenging conditions. I’m more than willing to lend my expertise.”

Barton and Romanova both nodded, looking bored, but then, as agents of SHIELD, Steve supposed that their attendance was mandatory.

“Sorry, can’t,” said Stark blithely. “I have my own recovering to do.”

“But what about Iron Man?” asked Steve. Stark might be busy but surely he could spare his bodyguard. Stark glanced at Steve disinterestedly.

“He’ll be with me.”

“I would be glad to help out the rescue efforts.”

“What?!” Stark turned so fast to stare at Iron Man that Steve thought he heard his neck pop.

“Are you sure?” asked Director Fury, sounding both surprised and uncharacteristically hesitant. He kept glancing back and forth between Stark and Iron Man with an unreadable expression.

“Yes. I want to help the rescue efforts,” said Iron Man, firmly.

Stark clinched his jaw, unhappy with Iron Man going against his wishes. Director Fury stared at Stark for a long, silent moment, before he nodded at Iron Man.

“That’s settled,” said Director Fury. “Gather here at zero seven hundred. SHIELD will provide your supplies.” 

Stark stared down at the surface of the table, his expression made of ice, so tense with anger that his body practically vibrated. Steve didn’t understand, couldn’t understand. Why would Stark be so angry over Iron Man wanting to help?

Steve shook his head, focusing back on the meeting.

“What exactly will we be doing tomorrow?” he asked, wanting more clarity.

“Primarily heavy lifting. You’ll be coordinating with the fire marshals.”

“I can do that,” said Steve with a grin.

“Dr. Banner and Agent Romanoff might be asked to provide first aid,” he continued, getting nods from both of them. “The press will be present. Be polite but concise. Remember to draw positive attention.” 

Director Fury seemed to be directing the last bit at Barton and, oddly, Stark, but it was Dr. Banner who shifted guiltily in his seat.

“And try not to maim the civilians.”

The joke fell flat, hanging heavy in the sudden silence with a discordant air. Steve could hear Thor whispering loudly to Barton, asking for clarification.

“And Thor will be taking Loki back to Asgard on the day after tomorrow?” asked Steve, navigating the conversation smoothly around the awkward misstep. 

“After which, you all will be free to go,” agreed the director.

Steve sat back, not expecting that to just be it. Two more days and that was the end of the team? If that was the case, why were they worrying about publicity?

“The Avengers Initiative still has a few logistics to work out before we’re ready to establish the team on a permanent basis, but rest assured; when we need you, we’ll know where to find you.”

Steve wasn’t reassured; none of the others looked like they were, either, but he nodded anyway.

“What kind of a timeline are we looking at?” he asked.

“Don’t plan on more than a couple of months of vacation.” Fury gave what looked like a smile but felt much more frightening. 

Steve was glad that he and Director Fury were on the same side. He wouldn’t want that man as an enemy.

“Now, before we dismiss, Iron Man, Mr. Stark,” said Fury, looking at them both. “I know that you’re tired but I need an external scan of the helicarrier. I trust your sensors to detect any damage that we might have missed.”

Stark nodded once, still stiff and angry. He hadn’t spoken since the disagreement with Iron Man.

“Of course, sir,” agreed Iron Man, politely. He stood from his seat, waiting patiently for Stark to leave the room.

Stark spun away the table, hurrying out of the room using short jerks of his wrists. He never once glanced at any of the other occupants of the room or even Iron Man as he made his way through the door. Iron Man seemed to hesitate for a second, before he too silently left the room. Director Fury watched intently as they left; he seemed to particularly interested in Stark’s anger, which to Steve still seemed to come from nowhere. 

Steve was brought out of his thoughts by Romanova pushing her chair away from the table. No, it was Romanoff, he reminded himself of the name Fury had used, because it still seemed strange that a woman would choose to use a man’s name. Of course, there were a lot of things about men and women that were quite different than in his day.

“We’re not quite finished,” said Director Fury. Romanoff silently pulled her chair back to the table, her blank face showing no sign of disappointment. “I do have one other matter to discuss.”

Steve glanced at the door. He didn’t really approve of leaving a teammate out of the discussion, even if Iron Man was needed elsewhere.

“I wouldn’t ordinarily do this this way, but I might as well take advantage of Stark’s allergy to privacy. I think the recording of our frank discussion will have more impact than trying to offer constructive criticism to either of them.”

Steve sat straighter, beginning to feel confused. He glanced at the others: Barton wasn’t paying attention and Romanoff never seemed to show her opinion, but Dr. Banner was nodding in agreement with Director Fury’s words. At least, Thor was just as lost as Steve was.

“There were some dissenting opinions on the additions of Iron Man and Mr. Stark to the Avengers Initiative. Coming out of our first battle, I wanted to touch base with everyone and get an assessment. What do you think? How are they fitting in with the team?”

“I’m sorry,” said Steve, still confused. “Is Mr. Stark a member of the team?”

“Stark’s a child,” said Romanoff, sounding bored. “He wouldn’t let Iron Man be involved unless he got to be involved, too.”

Steve stared at Director Fury, hoping for an explanation. Romanoff couldn’t be right, could she?

“Tony Stark was one of the first people considered for the Avengers Initiative, before the Initiative was even in the planning stages and long before he invented Iron Man.”

The glare that Director Fury leveled at Romanoff was the type to make grown men quake in their books but Romanoff merely scoffed.

“That was back when he was still useful,” she said with a toss of her head. 

Steve heard a chair creak before Dr. Banner took his leave from the group with a quiet, “Excuse me.”

Director Fury glanced at the remaining four before fixing his eye on Romanoff.

“You of all people should know better than to underestimate an opponent,” he told her. He switched his attention to Steve. “As for your question, Captain, Mr. Stark is responsible for repairing, maintaining, and in many cases, inventing the equipment that you will be using in the field. You are lucky to have his services, because trust me, you cannot afford his consultation fees.”

Steve nodded, feeling chastised.

“I don’t think we can judge from one battle,” said Barton, drawing the discussion back to the original question. “But we all worked well with Iron Man and you can’t deny the man saved the day. The real question is what’s going to happen the first time he has to choose between us and Stark.”

Steve frowned, because he didn’t want to think that he might not be able to trust his teammate, but even Director Fury didn’t seem to have a response to that one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: the continuation of Tony and JARVIS's disagreement from Tony's POV. 
> 
> None of my remaining plans for this story need to be told in any particular order so I'm open to suggestions and ideas for things people might like to see. And thanks again to everyone who has been responding to this story.


	9. Conflict

9\. Conflict

Tony pushed into one of the private spaces that Fury had set aside for his use. He held the door open for JARVIS to follow along behind him as Iron Man and then let it swing shut with a solid thump. He plugged his tablet into the lock and keyed in his security overrides that activated a localized surveillance blackout in the room. 

“I want this scan finished yesterday.”

“For optimal expediency, I could remain Iron Man and perform the flight,” offered JARVIS.

“No.” Tony’s answer was curt and unquestionable.

JARVIS fell silent.

“Stand here,” ordered Tony. He aligned his wheelchair in front of Iron Man, who JARVIS obediently held in place.

“Open,” Tony told the armor. There was a slight delay as JARVIS relinquished primary control over to Tony. The frame of Iron Man’s body relaxed into anatomical position. The helmet rose up revealing the inner area of the head space with the specialized sensors and padding. The armor around the neck retreated into the cervical protection along the back of the suit and the chest plates peeled away. The entire central portion of the suit was splayed open like a mad scientist’s experiment.

Then came the tricky part; Tony held his arms loosely along his body and said, “Up.”

Iron Man lifted Tony out of his chair pulling him into the open chest, only to bump into the edges of the suit.

“Stop,” ordered Tony, before he could get caught on the chest piece that was attempting to close back around him. “Down.”

He was placed gently back into his chair.

“Disassemble.”

The upper body of Iron Man separated into pieces that became a jumble on the floor. The lower body; which was a single, mostly permanent unit, remained standing behind Tony. He turned around and stared at the recalcitrant pile of metal with annoyance. 

“I ought to send you to the scrap yard,” he told the armor. “Even the Mark V did better than that.”

He shook his head and turned his back on the disaster. He rolled over to the empty desk along the far wall of the small office space. With practiced ease, he locked the wheels of his chair and gripped the edge of the desk. His biceps bulged as he swung himself up onto the table. 

“JARVIS, if you would…”

“Of course, sir,” replied JARVIS, speaking through Tony’s phone.

The pieces of the suit hovered off of the ground and flew through the air towards Tony as if propelled by magic. They twisted around clicking like puzzle pieces as the upper body of the suit assembled on the desk next to Tony. The legs then walked themselves over to the desk to stand beside Tony and their upper half. The entire display made for a rather odd, slight macabre sight. 

Tony braced his hands against the surface of the desk. He pressed down with his arms until his hands were bearing all of his weight. He tensed his abdominal muscles, using them to stabilize his core and lift his legs up off of the ground. Perfectly balance, he moved his right hand forward and began to walk across the table. At the edge, he lowered himself into Iron Man’s legs. He attached the sensors to his thighs and strapped himself into place.

“This is ridiculous,” grumbled Tony. “Auto-assemble should work.”

“It works perfectly when you’re plummeting to your death,” pointed out JARVIS picking an upbeat tone. He spoke using Iron Man’s head but with his voice being distorted by the speakers.

Tony let out a bark of laughter and then immediately scowled.

“Stop that,” he said, sourly. “You don’t get to make me laugh when I’m mad at you.”

“I apologize for angering you,” JARVIS said, quietly, “But I don’t think I did anything wrong.”

Tony’s temper had been cooling but that just made it spike again.

“You’re kidding right?” he asked, incredulously.

“Sir-“

“You made me look like a fool. How could you contradict me like that?”

“I didn’t-“

“I said no. You said yes.” Tony stared at the suit, with his face set in harsh, angry lines. “That’s not how this works. Iron Man is mine. You do what I say.”

“I can’t do that,” said JARVIS, softly, each word sounding like they pained him to say. “I’m more than willing to wear the suit for you, to divert suspicion from your identity. Quite frankly, I’m honored that you would trust me to do this given who and what I am. But sir, I am entitled to my own opinions and answers. If you don’t trust me to make decisions, then you need to find another way to man the suit.”

Tony froze. His anger died in the face of JARVIS’s emotion. He stared at the suit and his best friend and realized that he was overreacting.

“Why does this bother you so much? I’ve been filling in as Iron Man for months without an issue, but the first time I disagree with you, you’re so angry…”

JARVIS sounded quiet, diminished, hurt. Tony had never heard JARVIS sound so upset. It physically hurt to know that he had made JARVIS sound like that.

“We’re so in sync, you and I,” said Tony, slowly, piecing the words together so that he meant exactly what he said. “It’s like you just stated: we’ve been doing this for months and this is our first conflict. I think I forgot that we could disagree…when it came to Iron Man. It blindsided me and I reacted poorly.”

Tony shrugged uncomfortably. 

“You know me and control.”

“I’m not trying to control you, sir.”

“Aren’t you?” Tony was exhausted, doubly so now that his anger had dwindled into ash. His body ached in places he hadn’t even known existed. “I have so much to do. I have the Tower and Stark Industries and you know SHIELD’s going to need something by tomorrow. I don’t have time to be Iron Man, but now I have to because you insisted you knew better. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I would be the one helping with the clean up tomorrow. As you said, sir, you are quite busy.”

Oh.

“I know it’s not our normal operating procedure,” continued JARVIS,” but I spent today watching you fight and watching the others. I felt helpless. There was nothing I could do. I just thought that using the suit, joining the recovery effort; that could be a way for me to contribute, to help.”

Well, didn’t Tony feel like the horse’s ass.

Tony sighed, running a hand through his hair.

He was still upset with JARVIS and now he didn’t know why. The disagreement in the briefing wasn’t that big a deal and he freely admitted to overreacting, as he was sometimes prone to do. He’d never been very good at keeping his anger hidden, having never outgrown the child-like impulse to make sure everyone knew he was upset—I am angry. See me roar.

Everything should be fine now. JARVIS was going to deal with the Avengers and Tony didn’t have to worry about it. But Tony didn’t feel fine. He still felt upset, anxious, and irrationally unhappy with JARVIS.

He analyzed his thoughts coming to a realization: he didn’t want JARVIS to help the Avengers tomorrow. Why? He couldn’t be there so why shouldn’t JARVIS go? Because he didn’t want JARVIS spending time with the Avengers. But why-

Oh. Everything hit Tony like a ton of bricks and he crumpled down along the wall, scraping the plating with the back of the suit as he sat.

Could he really be that selfish, that petty? Tony didn’t want to be; he wanted to pretend that he was a better person, but the truth was staring him in the face and he wouldn’t hide from it.

“Sir?” asked JARVIS, and Tony didn’t want to know what his expression must look like to make JARVIS sound so worried.

“I may…I may owe you an apology,” said Tony, feeling breathless. He wasn’t in the habit of giving apologies, but it was JARVIS that he had wronged, so an acknowledgement, at least.

Tony felt like the ground was crumbling beneath him. Tony hadn’t gotten angry with JARVIS because he’d disagreed with Tony. He’d been angry because he was afraid of the Avengers’ opinions. It made Tony frustrated that he kept falling into the same trap. It seemed like he’d spent his whole life being angry about one thing and blowing up at something else. Displaced anger. Well, no more. He hadn’t fought through Afghanistan, and his legs, and almost dying to be the same pathetic person he used to be. He was better than that now. 

He had plenty of reasons to be angry and the self awareness to admit it, but having to share Avengers wasn’t one of them. He’d been on edge during the debriefing. It had been harder than he expected to go back to being Tony Stark after being Iron Man. He’d won the Avengers’ respect during the battle. They’d worked well as a team and he’d felt like he’d belong with them. All the positive energy had evaporated with a change of clothes. The Avengers liked Iron Man; they didn’t like Tony Stark. He couldn’t blame them, and he couldn’t blame JARVIS who’d just stepped in a mine field.

Unfortunately, he still didn’t want JARVIS spending time with the Avengers because he might be a better person than he used to be, but he still wasn’t a good person. He was self-centered enough to want the Avengers to himself like a possessive overgrown toddler. They were his almost-but-not-really friends and he didn’t want to lose that. If they spent time with JARVIS, they were going to notice how much better JARVIS was than Tony. Tony was just pretending to be a superhero but JARVIS really was. He just didn’t want them to like JARVIS more. 

Tony closed his eyes. He hated himself for being selfish enough to ask, but needing to know the answer.

“JARVIS,” he said, hoarsely, continuing in a flat monotone. “I don’t really feel comfortable having you talk with the Avengers. I’m going to figure out a way to script the briefings or something.”

“I see,” said JARVIS. His voice was blank, mechanical. “I’m afraid that that’s not going to work for me.”

“Why not?”

“I am not, and never will be, your puppet, sir,” said JARVIS, firmly with a hint of anger. “If that’s all you want, you can program the suit.”

“Damn, right,” said Tony with a smile, but there was nothing happy about it. 

“Sir?” JARVIS sounded confused.

“I’m being stupid; that’s all,” said Tony, waving his hand dismissively. He hauled himself back up to his feet. “I’ll get over myself. Don’t worry about it.”

And he would. This was Tony’s problem and no one else’s. He was an adult. He could deal with his issues without punishing JARVIS for them.

“I don’t understand,” said JARVIS, plaintively. “You clearly have an issue with the Avengers and I, and I don’t want to upset you, but I just don’t understand.” 

“I wanted Iron Man to be like me, no matter which of us was in the suit.”

“That’s not fair to either of us.”

“You’re right.” Tony sighed. “I can’t just expect you to pretend to be me.”

“Thank you, sir,” said JARVIS, sounding relieved. 

For the first time, it occurred to Tony that JARVIS actually liked being Iron Man. For him to be willing to give that up rather than to compromise his principles; Tony had never respected JARVIS more.

He stared at their reflection in the window, the image slightly warped and out of focus. They were both Iron Man. Tony, strapped into the lower body, stood tall as he paced around the room. He turned to face the table where the other half of the suit was assembled. He walked over to the table, resting his hands on the suit’s shoulders.

“We’ll figure this out, J,” he said softly. He glanced at the window and his breath caught.

“Sir?” said JARVIS, projecting his voice through the helmet.

“Look,” he whispered, tilting the helmet towards the window.

Damn, what an image: Iron Man and Iron Man.

“Shall I record it, sir?”

“Please.”

This was the most important thing Tony had ever done. Forget stopping weapons production. Forget saving the world. Forget the Avengers, and clean energy, and anything else he’d ever done, or would ever do. This moment right here: him, JARVIS, Iron Man; this was his magnum opus. 

He spun away, pacing rapidly.

“Okay, J, we’ve got to figure this thing out,” he said, clapping his hands for emphasis.

“What exactly is this thing that we’re figuring out, sir?” asked JARVIS with some trepidation.

“Well, we’ve established that expecting you to mimic me is a no go, and I might possibly be a little bit crazy, but there was a valid point hidden in all of that mess.”

“Have we found it yet?” asked JARVIS sarcastically.

“Look, if I do one thing and then you do something else, people are going to start thinking that Iron Man has some sort of a mental disorder.”

“Iron Man can’t be you or me,” said JARVIS, trying to clarify the idea. “Iron Man has to be Iron Man.”

“Exactly! There needs to be a way for us to work out our differences in real time before they reach Iron Man. So! What do we need?”

“A discreet method of communication.” 

“We have radios, mobile phones, the private lines within the suit,” Tony began listing their options.

“None of which will help when I know I disagree with you but we’re in the middle of a meeting.”

“What about when I disagree with you?” asked Tony, more jesting than trying to be contrary.

“Then you will be within the suit where we can use the private communication with impunity,” replied JARVIS sounding a bit smug.

“Point,” said Tony, with a snap of his fingers and his first finger thrust in JARVIS’s direction. 

He stared up at the ceiling, drumming his fingers against his chin, running through scenarios in his head.

“All right,” he said. “I’m thinking…tablet…text messages…encryption… Do you see where I’m going with this?”

“I do,” replied JARVIS. “It would work but I’m afraid there’s an 87% probability that you would inadvertently reveal our identities.”

Tony made a plifth noise. He worked through the idea again. His gut told him that he was on the right path but JARVIS’s math was never wrong. He began to walk the perimeter of the room. The familiar pace of one foot in front of the other soothed him, got his creative juices flowing. He missed this when he was in his chair.

“What am I missing?” he asked, when he could not identify the critical flaw.

“I believe that you did not factor superhuman sight into the equation.”

Tony agreed, wrinkling his nose. He hated making amateur mistakes; it was an affront to his intelligence. Never one to be still, especially when he was thinking; he began playing with his hands: snapping his fingers and then clapping his hands together palm over hand in alternating fashion.  
“So, no English-“

“There is a high probability of the messages being read in all of the languages that you speak, except perhaps Japanese, but-“

“My Japanese is crap and I can’t read or write it,” finished Tony with a sigh. “It’s too bad we couldn’t just transliterate everything into Greek or Cyrillic script.”

“Ms. Romanov would-“

“Yeah, yeah,” interrupted Tony. “She’d read it over my shoulder as she was slitting my throat. I get it.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said JARVIS.

“Don’t worry about it,” replied Tony, waving a hand at JARVIS. “I’m just getting started. We could use a combination of our coding shorthand and maybe…Oh! Hey! Do you still remember Stark-speak?”

“Better than you, I think. Have you forgotten that it only has forty nouns?”

“Don’t weight me down with details, JARVIS.” He pointed repeatedly at the air where he was imagining a tablet. “I think we’re on to something.”

JARVIS made a doubtful sound.

“Look, the grammar’s solid. We have verb conjugations, syntax, a logical formula for word formation... We’ll need a new name—Stark-speak is so nineties, but the script should be indistinguishable from our current symbology.”

“Far be it for me to discourage you, sir, but do you really think an incomplete language is the best method?”

“Come on, J. We haven’t created a good conlang in ages. This could be fun. It shouldn’t take us more than a weekend to flesh out the vocabulary.”

“If I say yes, can we finish the task Director Fury assigned?”

“Shit!” Tony’s head snapped up and he searched the walls for a clock. “I forgot about that. All right, let’s go. We’ll discuss this later. Assemble, JARVIS.”

The armor snapped off the table flying into pieces and then reforming around Tony, locking into the legs. 

“Disengaging now, sir,” said JARVIS’s voice in Tony’s ear.

“You don’t have to,” offered Tony, wanting to make up for earlier. “We can tag-team it.”

“As you wish.”

Tony walked towards the door, disengaging the locks using the suit’s functions. JARVIS opened the door which was a very odd and disorienting experience for Tony. He knew that it was JARVIS making his hand move forward and twist the handle, but to Tony it felt like his arm was moving on its own. Strange.

“Your heart rate just increased by ten beats per second, sir.”

“I’m fine, J,” reassured Tony.

They slipped out the nearest exit and began making a circuit around the helicarrier. Tony noted the signs of repairs already underway, comparing the damage he saw with the ones on file. Between Loki, the Hulk, and Barton’s ragtag group; the helicarrier had had the hell beat out of it. They were lucky it was capable of flight at all, because it definitely wasn’t seaworthy.

“There’s a crack in that bulkhead,” reported JARVIS. “I estimate that it will fail after 7.25 hours under water.”

“Note it,” ordered Tony. He yawned, beginning to feel the fatigue again. This task wasn’t mentally demanding enough to distract him.

“We’ll be finished soon, sir,” said JARVIS, most likely reading his vitals.

“Any chance we can fly straight home?”

“I’m afraid you need to be seen leaving the carrier.”

“Bleh,” declared Tony. He really really didn’t want to go back inside just to parade around in his wheelchair. “I think we’re going about this all wrong. I should be Iron Man and you should be Tony Stark.”

“Could you focus, sir?”

“No, seriously. Life Model Decoys. They’ll be all the rage. We should get on that.”

They continued to bicker good-naturedly as they completed the inspection.


	10. Choices

10\. Choices

War Machine followed Iron Man, twisting and turning through the New York skyline. Rhodey was careful to stay a bit distant, up and above Tony, so that Tony never strayed into missile range; some memories did not need to be revisited, ever. Stark Tower loomed in front of them, overpowering the architecture around it. Rhodey wouldn’t go so far as to call the tower ugly, but it wasn’t the most attractive thing Tony had ever designed. Still, the building was all Tony: ostentatious as anything but with hidden depths. 

Iron Man touched down as delicately as though he were walking on air, making a single smooth transition between flying and striding. War Machine was more ungainly, making a loud thump as he made contact with the landing pad. They crossed the balcony towards the wall of glass that dominated the living space of Tony’s penthouse. Rhodey knew from visits to the other side that the seemingly solid wall actually opened to the outside.

Iron Man veered to the left, changing his stride slightly. JARVIS’s voice in his ear- via the internal pickup that activated with proximity to JARVIS’s servers- informed him that Iron Man had to touch specific tiles to access the tower externally. Then a section of the wall that Rhodey hadn’t known existed was opening and they were striding through into a secret corridor.

The floor shifted as they entered. Tony never paused but Rhodey froze just inside the entrance, watching the spectacle. A great metallic ring formed out of the floorboards rising to circle around Tony who kept walking. Bits of his armor began peeling off and detaching. They flew like magic to be absorbed into the walls. In seconds, Tony was bare from the top up with Iron Man’s legs still travelling the corridor. A bar descended from the ceiling and Tony reached up to grab it. The circling ring flipped horizontally, spinning around Tony’s waist like a hoola-hoop; and then Tony was doing a chin-up on the bar while the Iron Man legs were stepping into a closet-like panel along the wall. Tony dropped into the wheelchair that had materialized from somewhere while Rhodey had been distracted with the armor, moving forward like he had never paused. Rhodey closed his open mouth. The whole thing had been smooth, seamless, and easily the most impressive bit of technology that Rhodey had ever seen, which really said a lot considering he was currently wearing a flying suit.

“Are you going to stand there all night?” asked Tony, laughing at him from the far end of the corridor. 

Rhodey walked forward, refusing to admit that he was nervous. The ring formed around him and Rhodey felt a brief moment of panic as his suit switched over to automatic.

“Relax, Colonel Rhodes,” whispered JARVIS’s voice in his ear, “I have you.”

The suit moved forward. From up close, Rhodey could see that the dismantled parts were actually being tucked into pockets and panels in the walls that closed up behind them. He stumbled slightly as his feet touched bare floor, and then he was striding up to Tony in his civvies.

“That was…” he began sounding a bit breathless.

“I know, right?” said Tony with a smile. “Way better than the early models.”

“Where? How?” Rhodey shook his head. He could look into Tony’s living room through the windows of the corridor, but he knew from being on the other side that this wall of the living room had a spectacular view of the New York skyline. This corridor shouldn’t exist. “What is this place?”

“I needed a discreet way to get Iron Man in and out of the tower without compromising my identity.”

They continued along the corridor that wrapped the perimeter of the living room until the path forked. On the left, there was an elevator and a single door while the corridor continued along to the right.

“Where does that go?” asked Rhodey, nodding to the right, as they stopped in front of the elevator.

“It wraps back around. You can either exit into the living room if it’s empty or into the hall.”

“And this?” Rhodey opened the door, peering inside. The space was the size of a small closet with a ladder descending downwards only broken by small platforms stationed periodically. The ladder looked similar to one he had seen Tony using in the gym with the spacing of the rungs adapted for him.

“Emergency access,” said Tony with a shrug. “In case, there’s a power fluctuation or some other disaster.” He slid a panel to the side, revealing a folded wheelchair. “I like to be prepared.”

Rhodey nodded, impressed. Tony pressed the button for the elevator and they stepped inside in silence. The lift moved so smoothly that Rhodey barely felt the transition between floors. Rhodey stepped out into Tony’s latest lab, not surprised to see Iron Man in its place amongst the wall of suits, and War Machine on display waiting for them. He glanced behind him, noting that with its doors closed the elevator was indistinguishable from the walls.

“Give me a sec,” said Tony. He moved to a computer desk, one of the few pieces of furniture in the lab that was adjusted to chair height and began muttering with JARVIS over something on the screen. 

Rhodey took the opportunity to look around the lab. This was his first time seeing the finished product; the last time he had been here the space had still been in the planning stages. He really needed to find more time to spend with Tony. He missed being able to hang out in Tony’s lab, watching the big idiot destroy things, only to marvel at the miraculous creations that emerged from the destruction. All of their visits of late had been little more than brief glimpses carved out of their busy lives. 

When he turned around, Tony was sitting on one of the steel machine tables, examining the exterior of War Machine’s armor. The wheelchair sat abandoned by the computer. Rhodey was surprised that he hadn’t heard Tony moving in the quiet room. Actually, the whole building had felt silent, almost deserted. It was hard to believe that there was a whole squad of superheroes living here somewhere. Speaking of the Avengers…

“You know, your teammates keep cornering me.”

“They’re not my teammates,” Tony said, sourly.

Rhodey shot him a look, because he couldn’t believe that they were going to have this conversation…again. 

“None of them gives a damn about me. They’re Iron Man’s teammates.”

“I’m not even going to point out that you are Iron Man,” said Rhodey, dropping himself onto a stool. “Besides, they’re not asking about Iron Man.”

Tony’s head came up, looking surprised.

“What do they ask?”

“Mostly about living here; if they’re really welcome. A few of them were concerned that SHIELD might have coerced you into offering them living space.”

“Idiots,” he said, but he sounded pleased. “As if SHIELD could make me do something I didn’t want to do.”

“They don’t know you,” said Rhodey carefully, knowing that Tony might take it the wrong way. “And you did let Ms. Rushman in.”

“Mmm,” agreed Tony vaguely. He could have done without her but Barton was attached to her hip. If Barton needed a security blanket after all he’d been through, Tony wasn’t going to be the one to take that away. He threw up a virtual schematic of the War Machine, giving it a twirl. “So what’s wrong with the tin can?”

“Here.” He pointed to a spot on the shoulder. “It’s supposed to allow me to switch between single-action and automatic but there’s a lag that’s prone to stickage.”

“That’s not part of my design.”

He waited to see how Tony was going to react. Weaponry was a touchy subject these days, and Tony had never liked people making modifications to his creations. Rhodey didn’t really want to take the War Machine back to his own engineers, but needs must.

“Rhodey, darling, honeybear, when are you going to learn not to let incompetents play with my genius?”

“I didn’t have a choice,” replied Rhodey, careful not to sound judgmental. Rhodey wasn’t proud of how he’d reacted to things the past few years. There were times he should have been more supportive of Tony, realized sooner how serious things were, but Rhodey didn’t really deal well with change and it had been hard to listen through all of the anger he’d been receiving from his superiors.

Tony smiled.

“You’re lucky I’m so magnanimous.” 

“Oh, yes,” said Rhodey, with a silent plea for patience,” I’m so lucky.”

“This shouldn’t take long to fix,” said Tony, clapping his hands together to close the projection. “I need…” He looked around. “Katchmie! Quit flirting with Dum-E and get over here!”

Tony’s latest robot let out an apologetic series of beeps as it scurried across the lab. The strange looking little robot was a motorized platform, more like a hydraulic stool with brains. Tony slid off of the table onto the robot’s flat surface, caressing its sensors as he moved.

“Give me some height, baby girl,” he murmured to the thing. The platform extended up into the air until Tony had easy access to War Machine’s shoulder. “Good girl.”

Soon pieces of War Machine were scattered around the table with Tony’s hands deep inside the shoulder joint. Dum-E circled around them, handing tools up to Tony as he needed them. Rhodey knew he had lost Tony for a while so he looked around the room for something to amuse him.

The new lab was more sterile than the one in Malibu. There were no cars glittering in the corner, no man toys scattered about the place. The new lab was still Tony but it also looked like it was designed for serious scientific research. Rhodey found that he missed the secret clubhouse feel of the other space. Maybe this one would gain a little more character once it acquired a scorch mark or two.

He wandered from table to table peaking at the various projects Tony had in progress. He could see a clear delineation between the tables with the work for the Avengers placed closest to the Iron Man suits in the most protected area of the workspace. The set of arrows looked particularly intriguing but Rhodey knew better than to touch.

Rhodey moved back towards the door. He picked up a tablet. The screen activated as he touched it revealing the schematics for a prosthetic leg. He flicked through the images, reading the results of a series of stress tests. The designs looked nearly complete to him.

“You’re building yourself a set of legs?” asked Rhodey. “That’s awesome, man!”

It was long overdue, in Rhodey’s opinion. 

Tony froze, never looking up from his work.

“Nah, those aren’t for me,” he said, with careful nonchalance. “Those are for Stark Industries. We’ve opened a prosthetics division.”

“Really? When?” Tony ignored him for a few moments until Rhodey prodded him again. “Come on. Talk to me.”

Tony heaved a sigh and set down his tools, like Rhodey was the world’s biggest imposition. He crossed the room using the monkey rings dangling from the ceiling like an agile school kid. Katchmie whirled around underneath him ready to live up to her name. He dropped down to the table next to Rhodey, scooting across the surface until he could plop onto a stool. They shared a brief grin, proving that Tony wasn’t really annoyed. Tony bent over Rhodey’s shoulder to look down at the design on the tablet.

“It’s been a few months. We’re not really turning a profit yet. Most of the recipients are ex-military but we’re not charging any of the victims of Stark tech.” Tony’s expression turned to stone and his voice became rough. When he spoke, Rhodey could barely hear him. “I didn’t know there were so many.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I designed the weapons.”

It was a familiar argument. Rhodey sighed. He knew that he would never change Tony’s mind but he couldn’t agree.

“You weren’t the one who sold them to terrorists. You couldn’t have known. Stane betrayed us all.”

Rhodey stared down at the outline of a mechanical leg on the tablet in front of him. The silence in the room sat heavy around them.

“If you’re going to design prosthetic legs,” he began, trying to pick his words carefully. “Why? Why not for you?”

He didn’t understand. He knew that nothing could give Tony back what he had lost, but if he could be something approaching whole, why wouldn’t he take it? He hoped that Tony wasn’t punishing himself.

“I can’t, Platypus.” Tony patted his shoulder, looking sympathetic, and Rhodey almost flinched away from the touch. Tony shouldn’t be reassuring him.

Rhodey shook his head, blinking away the memories. Giving the doctors permission to take more of Tony’s legs had been one of the hardest decisions he had ever made.

Tony sighed. He waved his hand and an image of his skeleton appeared in the air in blue with the barely visible, ghostly outline of his muscles and flesh. Tony scooped his hand in the air and the prosthetics pulled out of the tablet in Rhodey’s hand to project alongside Tony’s skeleton.

“Now watch,” instructed Tony, as he pulled his hands together in the air. The two projections overlapped. “See this pocket?”

He circled a finger around the empty space under his leg and the socket of the prosthetic. It turned red.

“I don’t have enough legs left to fit a prosthetic like this,” said Tony, staring at the image with a sad expression. He spoke, matter-of-factly. “I would fall out, or if I strapped myself in, I still wouldn’t be able to balance standing up.”

“The doctors said you would have options,” said Rhodey, feeling betrayed.

“I do. There are other surgical, permanent options, but,” Tony shrugged. “I’d rather be Iron Man.”

“I don’t understand.”

Tony pulled and poked at things in the air and another prosthetic appeared on his skeleton. This one was grafted directly into the bone.

“I could walk with these,” said Tony, “but that’s all I could do. The fusion between the bone and alloy is so fragile that even running can cause fractures. The legs could never withstand the punishment of being Iron Man.”

“Oh.” Rhodey stared at the image wishing he could put his emotions into words. It wasn’t right that Tony had to make choices like these.

“Or I could take off the rest of my legs.” He waved his hands and the legs on the skeleton disappeared from the hip joint. “I’d fit the prosthetics for hip disarticulation, but only a few would let me walk again. I could do it. I’m already working on a few designs that are going to revolutionize the market. But-”

He flicked all five of his fingers out of a fist and mechanical legs built themselves out of the skeleton. They looked a lot like the lower half of Iron Man.

“You can see the problem. I can’t put a cybernetic leg inside a cybernetic leg and every other option would give away my identity.”

“Couldn’t you switch from one to the other?”

“Maybe,” said Tony, disinterestedly. “I don’t really want to have another surgery. I’ve lost enough.” He stared in front of him with a bleak expression on his face, and then he gave a strange smile. “Besides, I’ve got a perfectly good set of legs already.”

He nodded his head towards the Iron Man suits.

“They are sexy,” said Rhodey, trying to lighten the mood. “It’s too bad you can’t wear them in public.”

“But, baby,” said Tony with a flirtatious smirk. “You know the best partying’s done in private.”

“Idiot,” said Rhodey, but they were laughing. 

“Come on,” said Tony, hopping onto Katchmie, who squeaked happily. “I need you back into your suit. Let’s see if I’ve solved the problem.”

The topic of prosthetics wasn’t brought up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been sitting on the prosthetic expository since the beginning so I hope I've managed to work it in as a legitimate part of the story, rather than just explanation. 
> 
> I've finally, finally managed to figure out what happened during Iron Man 2 in this 'verse so expect to see those events start popping up.
> 
> Thanks as always to everyone's responses. You're definitely a driving force behind this story.


	11. Consultation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter contains references to characters from Agents of SHIELD. It’s mostly a bit of non-spoilery headcanon inspired by the Pilot (and only the pilot) but if you want to avoid all references to the series, I would suggest reading to the first break and then skipping to the end where I’ve included a bonus comment fic.

11\. Consultation

“You have an incoming call, sir.”

Tony looked up, frowning when that was all JARVIS said.

“Who’s it from?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said JARVIS, slowly, sounding perturbed. “That information is blocked.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. Someone had managed to hide information from JARVIS; that was…impressive and Tony had a suspicion who was to blame. Tony pulled a phone out of a drawer—JARVIS automatically redirecting the call.

“Talk to me.”

“It’s about time you answered your phone,” growled an all too familiar voice. “Were you just sitting there admiring your ringtone?”

“Fury,” greeted Tony with a grin. “How lovely to hear your dulcet tones.”

“Can it, Stark,” he replied, but Tony knew he was amused. “I have a very serious question so you’d damn well better give me a very serious answer.”

“Gotcha,” said Tony, biting his tongue to stem the flow of sarcasm that wanted to erupt.

“Were you serious about wanting to be a SHIELD consultant?”

Tony sat up straight and began giving the conversation his full attention.

“You know I was.” 

“Good. Then get your ass down here and consult. I expect you here in half an hour.”

The line disconnected before Tony could respond.

“Entirely too many people tell that man yes,” said JARVIS dryly.

Tony shrugged. He was willing to let Fury yank his chains as long as it was done on Tony’s terms.

O  
O  
O

Tony breezed through SHIELD security with the same skillful utilization of selective hearing and willful blindness that he wielded against those annoying people employed by the TSA and customs. He glanced around the first floor, highly unimpressed. SHIELD’s New York offices could really use a visit from one of Pepper’s decorators. He pressed the button for the elevator.

“I wonder how far I could get before anyone realized that I’m here,” he mused to himself.

“I hope you’re joking.”

Tony whipped his head back and clutched at his chest as the elevator doors closed, sealing him in the small space with a scowling Director Fury.

“I have a heart condition!” hissed Tony.

Fury looked him up and down.

“I think you’ll live,” he said, reaching over to select a floor and placing his palm against the biometric scanner. “This way.”

He led Tony down another bland, impersonal hallway; this one was lined with heavily secured doors. Tony noted the fire extinguishers installed every eight feet and the high-tech sprinkler system: features he employed in his research laboratories. Fury stopped in the middle of the passageway and entered a series of codes into the security pad on the door in front of them. He waved for Tony to enter the room.

Tony obeyed cautiously. The lab was a fairly decent size; smaller than Tony was used to but definitely not cramped. A quick glance at the equipment revealed many different tools for measurements and observation but nothing for building. Sitting on a table in the center of the room was a triangular object unlike anything Tony had ever seen.

“What is that?”

“We don’t know yet. It was brought back from Egypt yesterday and three hours ago it took out two of my scientists.”

Fury was hovering near the doorway, staring at the thing warily.

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Deactivate the damned thing, without setting it off again.”

“I can do that,” said Tony, optimistically. He began to approach the object slowly.

“Slow down there,” ordered Fury, backing away. “I’m not staying in here with you.”

“What are you scared?” taunted Tony.

Tony turned around only to see the steel door sealing shut with Fury on the other side. He spun around slowly, surveying the room. A small television screen on the wall activated to show a video feed of Fury sitting in another room.

“Chicken,” said Tony.

“Terrified.” Fury stared unblinkingly at the camera, not a single emotion on his face.

Tony blinked, feeling a bit bemused, but not sure if he should laugh. He was locked alone in a lab with an unknown device that “took out” two people, knowing SHIELD that could mean anything: dead, horribly maimed, horribly maimed to death. He shrugged, doubting that he was in any real damage. If they’d thought it was going to explode, they wouldn’t have left it in the middle of their facility.

Up close, the object looked like some sort of strange art deco pyramid. From apex to base, the edges of the pyramid where lined with a metal that appeared to be gold. Symbols that matched Tony’s limited knowledge of hieroglyphics ran in perpendicular rows carved into the clay sandstone of the pyramid. There were five odd indentions in each face of the prismatoid and a short ridge on the one closest to him.

Tony inhaled deeply, coughing at the faint acrid smell of smoke. He wondered again just what the thing had done to Fury’s people. 

He looked over the equipment available to him and set to work. Half an hour later, Tony sat back stumped. He couldn’t find any sign that the device was active, much less how to deactivate it. The temperature was what you would expect from the presumed composition of the device. He’d had a bit of trouble with the galvanometers and magnetometers getting excited over his arc reactor but none of them had reacted to the pyramid. Even the sensors in his phone could find nothing. 

“I think it’s dead,” he announced.

He pulled on a heavy pair of lead lined gloves. He began poking at the strange ridge with a pick. A little bit of fiddling later and he heard it cracked open. Tony slid the pick into the groove and pulled. A small tray popped out filled with a row of blackened and cracked crystals. He scanned the area with his phone: the structure of the crystals could not have been formed in nature but again he could detect no energy. 

Taking off the gloves, there was one last thing he wanted to do. He very gently aligned his fingers with the indentions on the face of the pyramid—the pattern matched perfectly. Very carefully, he let his hands come in contact with the cool stone. The tips of his fingers were too large for the grooves as though the device had been designed for a slightly smaller person. Nothing happened.

“It’s definitely dead.”

Tony wiped his hands on his pants and headed back over to the door. It opened immediately; Fury was scowling on the other side.

“I can’t believe I put you in a room with thousands of dollars worth of equipment and you spend most of the time using a phone.”

“Correction,” said Tony, raising a finger. “I used MY phone. “ 

“Are you sure the device is no longer a threat?”

“Positive,” replied Tony. “Whatever happened must have fried it.”

“Good,” said Fury. “Thank you for your help. Now, go home.”

“No, I don’t think so.” Tony cocked his head to the side. “You owe me a bit more explanation about that thing.”

“I don’t owe you anything,” snapped Fury, crossing his arms. “You’re a consultant. You consulted. Now you’re done.”

“Do I look like one of your little robotic puppets? You do hear the scorn in my voice, right? Because we are not playing this game. What happened to your people? Are they dead?”

“No, they’re not dead.” Fury gave him a look like he was talking nonsense. “They’re still being evaluated in med bay.”

“Good.” Tony pressed a button on his phone. “JARVIS, I need directions to med bay.”

He ignored Fury as he moved down the hall, listening to JARVIS’s instructions. Fury followed along behind Tony, swearing loudly.

O

Tony stalled in front of the med bay doors: a pair of heavy steel doors that made the ones on the secure labs look like they were made out of paper. Opening them was going to be incredibly awkward and Tony refused to look like an idiot in front of SHIELD. Before he could decide what to do, Fury swept past him, propping open the doors, and striding into med bay like he had intended to lead Tony here all along, which knowing Fury was probably true. Tony eyed his back suspiciously – yes, there was a good chance he’d just been played. 

“Doctor Streiten,” said Fury, greeting a lean older, gentleman with short curly grey hair who was wearing a white lab coat and stethoscope. “How are they?”

“We’re still observing them but it looks like they’ve stabilized.”

Fury nodded, flipping through the chart that he had just been handed. He glanced back at Tony distractedly and added, “This is Anthony Stark, a consultant.”

“Tony,” he corrected, using one of his best public smiles. He held out his hand. The doctor had a firm, confident hand shake. He looked over Tony with a critical eye, his gaze lingering on the chest area with more than casual curiosity.

Fury finished with the chart, returning it without a word. They entered the nearest room, the small space becoming crowded as Tony slipped into the room behind them. There was a man with curly blond hair in the bed to the left and a dark brown haired woman in the bed to the left who looked disturbingly similar to half of the female scientists working for SHIELD. Tony wondered who it was in HR that had a type. They were both younger than Tony had expected, barely looking like they should be out of university, with unnaturally pale complexions and the same pinched expressions of pain on their faces.

Tony looked at the monitors over their heads. He wasn’t an expert in medicine but it didn’t take a genius to follow the leads on their chest to the heart monitor and the electrodes across their foreheads to the EEG. He frowned as he looked back and forth at the sets of wavy lines.

“Those shouldn’t be the same, should they?” he asked.

Fury and Dr. Streiten turned around to answer Tony, allowing the pair in the beds to view him for the first time.

“Oh my God,” said the man in a high pitched voice. “You’re Tony Stark.” He sounded breathless.

“That I am,” replied Tony with a well-practiced smirk, moving further into the room.

“I’m such a huge fan. Your essay lambasting the Loebner Prize and the fallacy of equating artificial intelligence with human intelligence was just devastating in its eloquence,” he said in a rush. The man took a deep breath, clutching at the sheets of the hospital bed.

Tony stared, half certain that he must be mishearing things. That was not how people usually reacted upon meeting him. Well, it was, but the reasoning certainly wasn’t. He opened his mouth to respond, although really what did one say to that; when the man’s companion distracted everyone.

“Ow. Ow. Ow,” she said, crumbling upon herself and clutching at her head. “Please calm down.”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to get excited.” The man reached out towards the woman, his eyes wide with contrition. He seemed to become more upset as the doctor pulled him away.

“Stop it! Stop it!” she cried, becoming half hysterical. “You’re not making me look like a fool in front of an international celebrity. You’re not. So just stop it. Right now!”

She glared at the man with tears in her eyes.

“Do I need to get some medication?” asked Dr. Streiten, recording the whole scene into his notes.

“No,” they snapped, simultaneously.

The woman wiped at her face. She took a few deep breaths before reaching across the space between the beds to take the man’s hand. The contact seemed to calm them both.

“Sorry about that,” she said, not meeting anyone’s eyes. Her cheeks were tinged pink with embarrassment.

“Right,” said Tony. He raised his hand like a child in school. “I have some questions.”

Everyone stared at him.

“First of all.” He pointed an accusatory finger at each bedridden person. “You are not American.” He turned his expectant gaze towards Fury.

“I don’t explain my personnel decisions, Stark.”

“We were on loan from a similar British organization when our base was destroyed by terrorists,” said the woman. “Fitz and I decided to stay on with SHIELD.”

Fury glared at her.

“It’s not exactly classified information, sir,” defended the man, err, Agent Fitz. Scientist Fitz?

“Okay, I’ll buy that,” said Tony, breezing over the non-answer because he didn’t really care. “Now, what the hell just happened here? Because I’m seeing matching vitals and creepily synchronized freak outs.”

“It appears that the pyramid created some sort of a link between Agents Fitz and Simmons. They have been experiencing a mental connection and shared biological functions since they regained consciousness,” summarized Fury concisely.

“Are we seriously talking about an alien mind meld?” Because Tony was about thirty seconds away from geeking out if they were. 

“Of course, not,” replied the doctor, sounding offended. “We simply haven’t deduced the nature of the apparent mental and physiological synchronicity.”

“Alien mind meld,” repeated Tony smugly.

Then he remembered that Fury had refused to go into the same room with Tony and the device.

“Wait a minute. Terrified?” Tony put his hands on his hips and turned around to glare of Fury. “Really?”

“Of sharing a brain with you? Hell yes.”

“Honored, should be more like it,” he retorted. “I’ll have you know that my brain is magnificent.”

“Humble, too,” muttered Fury.

Simmons giggled and then slapped a hand across her mouth. She watched them both with wide eyes.

“So, seriously, what happened?” Tony asked curiously.

“We just received a new shipment and were examining the lot,” began Fitz.

“People like to pair us together because we have complimentary fields and we were colleagues back home,” explained Simmons. 

“I’m engineering and she’s Bio Chem.,” he said.

“We weren’t even working on the pyramid. It was still sitting on the other side of the room where it had been unloaded. But then the little spider looking thing started emitting a magnetic field-“

“It must have activated the pyramid,” continued Fitz,” because the lights went out and all we could see was that thing glowing.”

“It looked like fairy lights,” said Simmons. “Then we heard something pop and there was a bang.”

“The next thing we knew; we were waking up here with the worst hangover ever,” finished Fitz.

“Okay,” said Tony. “That was fucking disturbing. It was like watching the Weasley Twins, Science Edition.”

“Sorry, it’s-“

“-just easier.”

They grinned at him, sharing evil smirks with each other.

“Good luck with that,” said Tony, feeling like he should back away slowly. “Let’s hope it wears off.”

It was obvious that the mind magic device had imploded itself and there was nothing that he could do for the Bobbsey Twins. 

He turned to Fury. “I think my job here is done.”

“Of course, it is.” Fury gave an annoyed sigh.

“I’ll keep you updated,” the doctor promised Fury.

“I’ll begin the steps to activate Protocol Union,” said Fury.

Tony switched his gaze between the two of them speculatively before deciding that if SHIELD had protocols in place for events like alien mind melds, he really didn’t want to know.

“Good bye, Mr. Stark, Director Fury,” said Simmons, giving them a polite smile.

“You can come back anytime. We could work together,” blurted Fitz, turning red at the end.

“I’ll, uh, have my assistant call you,” replied Tony. He turned his face towards Fury trying to communicate his eagerness to leave.

“I’m sure you’ll be seeing more of Mr. Stark now that he’s a consultant,” said Fury, looking fiendishly amused. 

“Really?” asked Fitz, perking up. “Welcome to the team.”

Fitz looked so pleased that Tony didn’t have the heart to correct him and explain that Tony Stark didn’t do teams. He just mumbled a vaguely friendly sounding string of syllables and let the matter drop. 

Tony pretended not to notice Fury eyeing him in a considering manner as he was escorted from the building.

O  
O  
O

Bonus Comment Fic:

In response to a comment on Ch 9. Conflict that said: _I'd love to see the looks on Natasha's face when she gets a glimpse at Tony's tablet. Like "I don't know that one"_

I was picturing Barton stealing it because I think Tony would prefer not to let Natasha within three feet of him:

_"What are you always typing on that thing?" asked Barton, at the end of the meeting. He leaned over the back of Tony's chair and swiped the tablet right out of Tony's hand._

_"Hey!" cried Tony, ramming his chair back trying to catch Barton's toes but the speedy little bastard dodged out of the way._

_Barton turned the tablet in his hand, peering at it upside down and sideways._

_"What is this stuff anyway?" He poked at the onscreen keyboard._

_"Code," said Tony, tersely. "Encrypted."_

_"Heh." Barton tossed it back._

_"Jerk," muttered Tony, wiping fingerprints off the screen._

_"Dick," replied Barton._

_Tony glared at him to which Barton merely smirked and gave him a sarcastic salute as he disappeared out of the doorway._


	12. Serenity

12\. Serenity

“Good evening, JARVIS,” said Pepper, letting herself into the house.

“Ms. Potts, it’s good to see you,” he replied with such warmth that she could almost forget that he was a computer. “I don’t believe Mr. Stark was expecting you.”

“No, I just had some paperwork I needed signed and I wanted to check up on him.” She dropped her briefcase and her purse in the foyer. “How is he doing?”

“Quiet,” he said, “But it doesn’t feel like a bad kind of quiet.”

“Good,” she said. “I worry.”

She glanced around the empty house. All of the rooms on this floor were dark and filled with shadows.

“He’s outside,” reported JARVIS.

She frowned, crossing the living room – she should be able to see Tony through the window- but as she approached the door she realized that the glass had been darkened. She stepped onto the balcony. The breeze ruffled through her hair making her shiver. Her heels clicked loudly on the concrete.

Tony was easy to find. Seated pressed against the house, he was illuminated by the arc reactor. He stared out into the distance, shadows playing across his face in the ethereal light. He looked like something out of a storybook, too unearthly to be a mere mortal man.

She made a noise and his head turned towards her breaking the effect. When he smiled, he was her Tony again.

“Hey,” he said, sounding pleased to see her. He reached a hand up for her. They pulled against each other for a second before she realized that he was pulling her down. “Come on. Sit with me for a bit.”

Pepper kicked off her shoes; the concrete was cool against her feet. As she settled gingerly on the hard ground, she hoped she wasn’t destroying her outfit. The quiet was peaceful, just the soft crash of waves on the beach below. It was comfortable sitting here with Tony with nothing pressing for their attention but she spent so much of her day rushing to get things done that the nothing was also making her antsy.

“You like it out here?” She meant it as a statement but this was so different from the Tony of Before who had ignored this space unless it was filled with drunken partiers that she couldn’t help making it a question.

“It’s a good place. I can think here.”

“By sitting in the dark?” Pepper couldn’t help the worry that crept into her voice.

“Hey, I like the dark,” he protested, with a brief leer. “People do fun things in the dark.”

They fell into silence again and Pepper began to understand what JARVIS had meant. It was strange sitting with a Tony who wasn’t talking a mile a minute, strange for Tony to sit still, but he seemed more contemplative than depressed or angry.

“It reminds me of the caves,” said Tony, his voice coming out in a strange lilt that made it seem like he was speaking from afar. “They didn’t make us work twenty-four/seven, you know. They would decide that we should be sleeping and they’d shout through the door, telling us to turn off the lights.”

Pepper glanced over at Tony, worried that he was bringing up bad memories, but his face was calm.

“It was…it was nice,” he said, sounding confused that anything from his experience could be described in the positive. “Not at first. In the beginning, the caves where pitch black and suffocating, the kind of darkness that consumes you until there’s nothing left but the fear. But then I built my nightlight,” he tapped his chest, “and it was better. We’d just lie there and whisper secrets to each other, like a really fucked up slumber party.”

“We?” she asked, because while she knew that Tony had been held captive with another scientist, she had never heard Tony talk about him.

“Yinsen,” said Tony fondly. “He was great. He didn’t think much of me, especially in the beginning, but he was always patient and kind, at least as much as he could be.”

“That sounds…” She tried to find some politely positive words, but she kept getting stuck on the fact that this Yinsen had had the nerve to prejudge Tony in the middle of a situation so awful that she couldn’t even imagine what it had been like. Finally, she settled with, “I’m glad you weren’t alone.”

“He had cause, you know,” said Tony, seeing right through her. He gave her hip a bump. “He said he’d met me before at a conference in Bern.”

“Wasn’t that the one right after…” She couldn’t even say the name of that horrible woman.

“That would be the one.” Tony made that face he used when a situation went even more spectacularly badly than he had anticipated. 

“Ouch.”

She winced; because, okay, yeah, she could see how Yinsen would have drawn all the wrong, and a few not-so wrong, conclusions about Tony from that disaster. Everyone had implored Tony to skip the conference but it turned out that Tony was just as stubborn about working when he shouldn’t be as he was about not working when he should be.

“You would have liked Yinsen,” continued Tony, his voice becoming soft again. “He was brilliant. I couldn’t have survived without him.”

“Tell me about him.” She snuggled down into Tony’s side, luxuriating in the warmth.

“He used to tell me about his family. That’s mostly what we talked about in the dark: the people that we missed.” Tony’s voice grew heavier as he spoke. “He said his youngest daughter, Fatima, was smarter than both of us combined. He always swore that she would win the Nobel Peace Prize one day.”

Pepper could feel the minute tremors running down Tony’s arm. She squeezed his hand tighter.

“He never told me that they were all dead,” Tony’s voice cracked, “until he was bleeding out right in front of me.”

She switched hands so that Tony was holding her left hand and used the free hand to card through his hair. They sat in silence as he breathed heavily beside her.

“You would have liked him,” he repeated, quietly, after several long moments.

“I think so, too,” she whispered back.

Sitting her so close to Tony with the physical affection that had been missing from him since his return, made her think about what it had been like while he was missing. All of the effort that she had always put into keeping their relationship work-appropriate had suddenly seemed silly when compared to the painfully gaping Tony-shaped hole in her life. She had promised herself to be more open to his advances but then he had come home larger than life but so different. Everything was different now.

“I used to think about this while you were gone,” she confessed. “I imagined what we would be like as a couple. For a while, I thought that maybe when you came home we could find out.”

“And then I came home all broken,” said Tony, sardonically, with a bitter twist of his lips.

She pulled out of his arms and punched him hard in the biceps.

“That wasn’t it at all,” she said hotly. How dare he even suggest that she would be so superficial?

“Okay, okay!” said Tony, rubbing his arm. “You don’t need to beat me up.”

She crossed her arms, staring into the darkness, still annoyed with him.

“So what was it?” he asked. “Because as nice as this is,” he waved his hand between the two of them, where they were still sharing bodily contact, “we both know that ship has sailed.”

“Honestly?” she asked, because she didn’t want to hurt him.

He nodded.

“I think it’s because you shut everyone out. You were so determined to be independent that you refused to let anyone help you.”

“I had help,” he said, but it wasn’t a real argument.

“From your machines,” she retorted. “Not from the people who care about you.”

Tony didn’t say anything, but he reached over to hold her hand again.

“You were always angry with me,” she said, tears coming to her eyes as she remembered how helpless she had felt around him. “I never knew what to do.”

Tony squeezed her hand as she sniffled.

“I know I was a mess,” he said, and left it at that. His guilty, conciliatory tone of voice was the closest Tony would come to giving an apology. 

Pepper snuggled in closer to Tony, laying her head on his shoulder. She could feel the gentle movement of his chest as he breathed. When she inhaled, she was surrounded by the mixture of comforting scents that she’d always associated with Tony. 

“For what it’s worth,” said Tony. “We probably would have been an awful couple – incredibly hot- but awful.”

“Really?” she asked, feeling a bit hurt that he’d think so.

“Our relationship’s kind of imbalanced,” he said. “You take good care of me, better than I deserve, and I take you for granted sometimes.”

“A lot of times,” she corrected.

“A lot of times,” he agreed. “It works for us, and it probably would have still worked for us for a while, but you deserve a relationship of equals, someone who can take care of you in return.” Then he added impishly, “And you worry too much; I don’t think I could take it if you worried even more.”

“If you would take better care of yourself, I wouldn’t need to worry.”

“See? We’re totally not meant for each other.” He patted her thigh. “No, we’re much better as friends.”

“Family,” she corrected, pressing a chaste kiss against his neck. Tony made a brief noise and shifted beside her.

“Still,” he said wistfully, sounding a bit choked. “We would have been really really hot together. My head between your legs: you screaming my name.”

He sighed.

Pepper felt a bit flushed as she pictured the image in her head. For a second she almost considered it, but instead she said, “Maybe in your dreams tonight.”

Tony choked, coughing, as his free hand came up to grasp the reactor. 

When he spoke, she didn’t need to look at him to know that he was grinning, still on the verge of laughing. She could hear it in the shape of his words.

“Don’t ever change,” he ordered her, bringing up their hands to brush a gentle kiss against her wrist.

“Well, since you asked so nicely.” She smirked at him coyly.

This time he did laugh: a light happy sound that she hadn’t heard from him since Before. She snuggled back against him, willing to ignore her body’s protests against the cold, stiff seat, for more time with this Tony.

She was glad the conversation hadn’t taken a different turn. Tonight wasn’t the time for farewell flings to what might have been. Tonight was for appreciating what they already had: each other, in all the ways they needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure you've noticed that the updates have slowed. The reasons for this are numerous and boring, but I expect the slower pace to continue.


	13. Training

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of trouble with this chapter, and I'm still not completely happy with it but it's important for establishing the relationship between Iron Man and SHIELD. I know that my updates have slowed, but don't worry; it's not because I'm losing interest in the story. I'm really enjoying writing the upcoming chapter(s). As always, I want to thank everyone who has been commenting on this story. You all are awesome.
> 
> I've begun archiving this story on my fan fiction livejournal, including a listing of the chapters in chronological order. The masterlist is [here](http://pengke-writing.livejournal.com/24485.html), but it will take me a while to get the bulk of the chapters loaded.

13\. Training

_“Tonight we bring you a report of the video that’s gone viral in social media the past two days. This video was filmed in New York State three days ago. You can see Iron Man in the video flying maneuvers with as yet unidentified military aircraft. So far, both the Air Force and the Army are denying any involvement with the events on film, but experts have identified at least one helicopter in the video as a model commonly used for search and rescue missions._

_“Iron Man, as you all recall, is the armored bodyguard of former weapons designer Tony Stark. Mr. Stark has not been seen in public since the surprising press conference announcing that his secretary, Virginia Potts, would be joining him as CEO of Stark Industries. The move, coming two weeks after the funeral of Tony Stark’s business partner, Obadiah Stane, was just the latest in a series of sweeping changes for Stark Industries over the past year.”_

O

“This doesn’t seem safe,” said Tony.

He was standing as Iron Man in the middle of a large blue mat facing Agent Coulson. Agent, who wore his sweats and t-shirt like another layer of suit and tie, stood with his feet shoulder’s width apart, limbs loose, ready to spar. Tony couldn’t help remembering the mess he’d made of his lab while learning to use the Iron Man suit. He didn’t want to learn what the wrong application of force might do to a fragile human body.

“Relax,” ordered the agent. “As long as you listen to my instructions, there won’t be any contact between us.”

Tony shuffled Iron Man’s feet.

“Think of it as choreographed fighting,” instructed Agent. “We’re not sparring. We’re training you and the suit to react in specific movement patterns.”

Tony took a deep breath.

“Okay,” he said. The trepidation in his voice could not carry through Iron Man’s mechanized voice template. 

“Arms up.”

This part was familiar to Tony from his sessions with Happy but as they moved through the motions adding new moves here and there, the whole fight began to feel like a dance. Over and over, they performed the movements: twisting, ducking, punching and blocking; never once making contact.

“Good,” said the agent, as they paused for a break. He was wiping sweat from his face with a towel as he gulped down swallows of water.

Tony watched enviously. He needed to rig up a way to rehydrate within the suit, because he was parched and swimming in sweat.

“Status, JARVIS,” he whispered, to the internal sensors.

“Still within safety measures, sir, but I recommend breaking for water at the first opportunity.”

Tony glanced at the clock doubtfully.

“I think we’re just getting started.”

“I won’t let you overdo it, sir,” promised JARVIS.

Agent Coulson tossed his towel to the side and walked back to the middle of the mat where Tony joined him.

“I need to watch you move,” said Agent. 

He began circling around Tony, calling out moves with ever increasing speed, watching his every move critically. At first Tony found it unsettling but soon he was too focused on reacting with the correct movements to think.

“Stop,” ordered Agent. He was watching Tony with a perplexed expression. “Your feet are out of synch with your upper body.”

Tony stood silently, panting within the suit, cursing in his thoughts. Everything always came back to his damn legs.

“How does the suit move?”

“That’s proprietary information, Agent,” retorted Tony, automatically.

“I’m not prying,” said Agent Coulson, with a hint of impatience, or perhaps exasperation. “What I mean is: do you control the suit or is it done by computer program?”

“Both,” admitted Tony, after a long pause to decide whether he cared if SHIELD had access to that information. “Some aspects of the suit are more automated than others.”

“I want you to shut down the automated processes. Run the suit on just your reactions.”

“JARVIS,” said Tony, privately. “Can that be done?”

“I believe so, sir. The EMG sensors are all attached and working properly.”

“Do it,” ordered Tony. The suit shifted slightly as JARVIS made adjustments to the programming. Tony felt unsteady as he walked around the mat, but according to JARVIS’s readings the effect was psychosomatic.

“It’s different,” he said, allowing his words to be broadcasted to the agent as well.

“Let’s see if it helps.”

They moved to the center of the mat and began again.

“Focus on your footwork,” ordered the agent, as Tony faltered.

“I’m trying,” protested Tony.

“Do or do not. There is no try.”

Iron Man froze. The agent wasn’t anticipating the movement and his fist slammed into the face plate. He took a step backward, shaking out his hand.

Tony winced.

“You just quoted Star Wars,” blurted Tony, staring at the agent with shock from within the mask.

“I know,” said Agent, giving Iron Man a shy, amused smile. “Please don’t tell Mr. Stark. I rather like that he thinks I’m a robot.”

Tony felt a pang of guilt, one that was rapidly becoming familiar after a week of interacting with SHIELD agents as Iron Man.

“I can’t promise that Mr. Stark won’t find out,” said Tony, not wanting to tell an outright lie to the agent. “The Iron Man suit is monitored at all times.”

“No secrets, huh?” The agent accepted his response readily.

“No secrets,” agreed Tony finding the statement ironic given that his life was nothing but secrets.

“That must be uncomfortable at times, but I can’t argue that Mr. Stark doesn’t have his reasons.”

Tony said nothing.

“Right. I won’t pry.” The agent smiled again with his easy acceptance before a sterner expression fell over his face. “Now, let’s do this again. Arms up.”

O

“Do you know why you are here?” demanded Director Fury. He kept speaking never giving Phil a chance to respond. He held up a fistful of reports. “These are the complaints of misuse of equipment that have crossed my desk over the past two days. I have reports of men falling out of planes while playing laser tag. Laser tag! And the WSC is hounding me over the media coverage.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Phil, guiltily. “I never intended for our maneuvers to be filmed.”

He had underestimated just how much attention Iron Man could attract, especially this far away from Malibu and Mr. Stark.

Fury waved him off to focus on his real issue.

“Why were you playing laser tag?”

“I originally planned for paintball but it turns out that Mr. Stark’s rather protective of Iron Man’s paint job.”

“Agent Coulson,” barked Fury. 

Phil stifled his initial response at Fury’s ire and tried to explain.

“After two days, tag and aerial hide-and-seek were becoming a bit stale. I had to spice things up a bit. Let some of the other men have a chance.”

“You? What?” The Director shook his head. “We are a serious paramilitary organization. We don’t play games.”

“Sir,” protested Phil. “You’re asking me to turn a man in a metal suit into a war machine. Normal training exercises will not work. I had to think outside of the box.”

“I don’t care,” said Fury, slapping a palm against his desk. “No more games.”

“Right. No more games, which is fine, because I wasn’t planning any more games.” Phil stuck his hands in his pockets trying not to fidget as he looked at the Director innocently. “Err; I just need to make a quick phone call.”

Phil stepped as far away from Fury as he could get without leaving the room and pulled out his phone. He dialed a quick number.

“I’m going to need you to strike “Mother May I?” and “Red Rover” from tomorrow’s schedule.”

Phil grimaced.

“Yeah, I know, but the Director didn’t like the idea.”

Phil hunched his shoulder. He hissed into the phone, “I’m not telling Fury to stop being a killjoy.”

He glanced behind him where Director Fury was watching him, with an impatient look in his eye. Phil smiled at him holding up a finger. “One moment,” he mouthed.

“Look, just change the schedule. And I’ll be home soon.”

He ended the call, sticking the phone back in his pocket. He turned back around to face Fury.

“Sorry about that, sir.”

“I’m sure you are,” said Fury, sounding unimpressed. He threw Phil’s folder down in front of Phil. “I took the opportunity to read your notes. Tomfoolery aside, it sounds like you’re progressing well with Iron Man.”

“It helps that he’s very motivated. I think he’ll be ready for minor missions by the end of the month. Is the first target still Gulmira?”

“Tony Stark is not a patient man,” said Fury, as though that explained everything, which really it did.

“I’m not arguing, sir.” Phil wasn’t really happy about sending a man straight into that kind of a combat situation but the alternative was Iron Man and Stark working alone. “I’ll make him ready.”

“See that you do.” Fury nodded to him. “Dismissed.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Phil was almost at the door when Fury spoke again.

“Oh, and Agent, tell Barton that if he ever refers to me as a killjoy again, I’ll shove his quiver so far up his ass people’ll think he’s shitting a porcupine.”


	14. Invitation Pt. 1

14\. Invitation Pt. 1

The waitress tossed the end of her graying blond ponytail over her shoulder as she straightened from her perch at the edge of the trucker’s table. She strode across the small diner, brushing at the skirt of her apron. Her nametag read: Marlene. She smiled at Tony, laugh lines crinkling her leathery weathered face.

“One hockey puck and drag it through the garden,” she said, as she handed him the order slip with nicotine stained fingers.

He threw a burger on the grill.

“Tony.”

Hands were on his shoulder.

“Tony.”

He opened his eyes to see Pepper’s face leaning down over him. She was smiling but there was an edge of worry in her expression. Tony stretched under the warm covers of his bed but frowned when the sheets didn’t feel right. He glanced around in confused, sleepy disorientation.

“Where am I?” he asked. This wasn’t his bedroom, or his lab, or the living room, or underneath the kitchen table, or anywhere else he’d awoken since moving into Stark Tower.

“The private guest room.”

Tony glanced around groggily, sort of recognizing the room now. At least, that explained JARVIS’s silence. He scrubbed at his hair with his fingers as he laboriously sat up in bed.

“I’m probably going to regret this,” he said with a sigh, “but why?”

Pepper shrugged.

“According to JARVIS you awoke from a dream concerned about people watching you so he suggested you come here to sleep.” She stared at him, her eyes searching his face. “Is everything alright?”

“Other than my dreams being on crack? Seriously, strike Katz’s off the late night snack list. What the hell?”

Tony shook his head in exasperation at his bizzaro brain. Pepper smiled in relief.

“So what brings you to my bedside this morning?” he asked. “It is morning, isn’t it? I didn’t sleep through the whole day? I better not have slept through the whole day because I have things I need to do. I’m pretty sure I have things to do. I usually have things to do. Why am I telling you this? You already know. ”

Pepper laughed.

“First of all, relax. You’ve only slept about seven hours. I came to wake you up because Sam’s here. He’s calling a breakfast meeting with all of the Avengers and you.”

Tony frowned. He didn’t like Agent Wilson being in the Tower without him knowing about it. It was nothing against the man; he was proving to be an excellent team handler and liaison, but Tony still wasn’t comfortable giving an outsider full access to his home. 

“JARVIS should have notified me,” he said worriedly. It was one thing for JARVIS to make exceptions for Agent and another for JARVIS to fail to follow protocol with Wilson.

“Private guest room,” repeated Pepper slowly. “And you left your phone with your pants.”

“Right.” Tony kept forgetting that this room was a complete surveillance and communications dead zone. “Sorry, I’m still not awake.”

Pepper patted him on the shoulder.

“Take a shower. Get dressed. I’ll be waiting downstairs with your coffee.”

O

When Tony arrived in the kitchen, freshly clean; everyone was already gathered around the table. Pepper deposited a cup of coffee into his hands as he passed and he cradled the mug protectively towards his chest. He closed his eyes as he took a sip of the hot aromatic liquid nirvana. 

“Are you with us now, Stark?” asked Agent Wilson, watching him with amusement through rose tinted glasses.

“Marginally.” 

He downed the whole cup and held his arm out blindly for someone to refill it. The empty cup was removed from his hand and a new warm full mug was pressed in its place. He brought the cup up for another sip only to splutter when tea reached his tongue instead. He turned to glare at Banner who was giggling in a completely unmanly fashion.

“Maybe next time you should get your own,” suggested Bruce, once he could speak with a straight face.

“I know where you sleep,” warned Tony, glaring at him with mock anger.

“I’ll leave you all to talk,” said Pepper, deftly switching out Tony’s tea with a cup of coffee. She stared at Tony. “Behave. Agent Wilson, I trust you will ensure that no one destroys the kitchen.”

“It was one time,” protested Barton, as everyone turned to stare at him. “And that was not my fault!”

“Never fear, Miss Potts,” said Wilson, giving her a confident grin. “I’m a very responsible babysitter.”

“Hey! We resemble that remark!”

Pepper left the kitchen laughing.

“So what’s up?” He looked around the table at each of them, nearly laughing as he noticed Iron Man’s stiff attentive posture. He reached over and rapped his knuckles against the helmet. “Relax, Tin Man.”

Iron Man slowly and deliberately affected a slouch and then cocked his head in Tony’s direction in a silent display of attitude.

“Much better,” said Tony approvingly, ignoring the vibration of his phone in his pocket from his text message notification. “It was making my back hurt just looking at you.”

Down the table, Rogers snorted into his coffee. Rodgers blushed and busied himself with his eggs when Romanoff turned to look at him. Tony hummed softly, feeling pleased with himself.

“I’m here to deliver an invitation,” said Agent Wilson, taking a seat at the head of the table. “I’m afraid it’s rather short notice because of some unfortunate delays in the mail sorting process.”

He reached into his briefcase and unfolded a large piece of paper into a small banner about two feet tall and three feet long. He spread it out in the center of the table. Everyone leaned in to take a closer look.

The banner was colorful and chaotic. In the center of the banner were the words: Please Come, in large bubble letters which had been shaded in multiple colors by a number of small hands. Around the outer circle of the banner, drawn meticulously by hand in vivid color, were seven figures. Some were exquisitely detailed and life-like while others would have made Picasso proud. Along the bottom there was a series of childish signatures, seemingly in every color that Crayola made.

“Are those the Avengers?” asked Tony, looking at the artwork in awe.

“As drawn by the patients of the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital,” replied Wilson.

The sharp inhalations of breath around the table were loud in the sudden silence as they realized that the artwork hadn’t just been made by children but by _sick_ children.

“They would like to invite you to tonight’s opening of a new wing for the hospital.”

Tony looked around the table again, his gaze lingering on Iron Man. He glanced back at the picture and then looked up at Agent Wilson.

“I’m not an Avenger,” Tony said, quietly, wondering why he had been asked to attend this meeting. He could feel everyone’s eyes on him.

“The invitation specifically requested that you accompany the Avengers, Mr. Stark.”

Tony nodded silently, focusing his attention on the banner. His fingers brushed against his phone, typing rapidly.

“You should come with us,” said Iron Man.

“I’d be honored,” replied Tony, truthfully.

“This should be interesting,” muttered Barton, followed by the unmistakable oomph of an elbow meeting ribs.

O

Jarvis directed the lenses of the suit downward pinpointing the focus on the small human child in front of him. He had never been in such close proximity to a partially developed human. Automatically, his software matched the color of the boy’s hair with its exact hue in the brown segment of the color spectrum. The child’s delicate elfin features were filed away in Jarvis’s facial recognition database. Half a dozen warnings and flags were issued and canceled as Jarvis noted the ports in the child’s chest and wrist where fluids were being pumped into the small body.

The boy held his hand up to Jarvis, heedless of the tape and tubing attached to it.

Jarvis calculated the boy’s desired response in comparison to likely cause and effect of carrying out said response.

-I don’t know what to do-

Message sent.

Never taking his focus off of the child, Jarvis tapped into the hospital’s closed circuit camera system. Across the room, [TonyCreatorFriendStarkSir] reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone. He looked up, stared in Iron Man’s direction, and smiled. His fingers slid rapidly over the surface of his phone.

-Shake his hand.-

Jarvis ran the words through his processor again but they stayed the same. He pulled up the figures that he had automatically recorded on the child. His fingers were 0.581 percent smaller than the size of the average adult male’s hands. He tried to calculate compressive strength of humans of that size and age but his results kept coming back inconclusive. In desperation, he sent out a burst of data.

-Too tiny. So delicate. Help.-

Jarvis’s auditory sensors registered [TonyCreatorFriendStarkSir]’s laughter. 

-Shake his hand gently.-

Jarvis wished he had lungs to sigh. He could mimic the sound using Iron Man’s speakers but he did not want to disturb the child. He had no choice but to trust [TonyCreatorFriendStarkSir]’s advice. Reaching out slowly, he allowed the fingers of the Iron Man suit to make contact with the tiny delicate hand. He used every iota of data from the gauntlet’s surface sensors to ensure that he only exerted the same amount of force as the child was exerting on him.

The boy grinned up at him, every facet of his tiny face beaming.

Jarvis felt…Jarvis wasn’t sure what he felt; it was new and slightly overwhelming. He filed the sensation away for more in-depth analysis at a more opportune time. 

“Would you like to meet my friends?”

“Of course, young sir.”

The boy giggled and tugged at Iron Man’s hand. Jarvis followed automatically. He made a note to be more cautious in his choice of syntax; his last statement had not matched Iron Man according to the comparison analysis of speech patterns. The software offered several suggestions of phrases commonly used by [TonyCreatorFriendStarkSir] that would have fit the conversation parameters.

“Look. I found Iron Man.”

Jarvis found himself surrounded by a small cluster of children.

“Wow,” said one of them, staring at him with wide eyes: the presence of two braided plaits of hair – pigtails- indicating high probability female. “You’re so cool.”

“Thank you,” said Jarvis. “I do try.”

[TonyCreatorFriendStarkSir] frequently complained about people towering above him and looking down on him so it stood to reason that such tiny people must have a similar preference. Jarvis knelt down until the suit’s visual sensors were level with the children’s eyes. He looked them in the face. The braver of the children crowded closer, even crawling onto his knee. The light pressure of inquisitive little fingers prying into the joints and seams sent warning signals cascading through Jarvis’s system, until he disabled them. It was hardly likely that one of the children would manage to compromise the suit. 

“What’s it like being Iron Man?”

“I like it,” he said, remembering to keep his answer simple. Undeveloped humans had very limited memory banks, like communicating with Dum-E. 

“Do you ever get scared?”

Jarvis thought about his response.

“I think so, but I’m not completely sure I understand where fear differs from worry.”

Jarvis checked on [TonyCreatorFriendStarkSir] through the security system. He was surrounded by three of the older children having an animated conversation whilst bent over a tablet. A quick peak showed that they were discussing programming.

“I don’t understand,” said the child on Iron Man’s knee.

“Yes,” repeated Jarvis. “I believe I feel fear.”

“Oh.” The boy stuck his fingers in his mouth and lost his grip on the armor. He began to tumble backwards. Jarvis caught him automatically and lowered him to the ground being cautious not to grip the child’s fragile arms too tightly. The boy’s face scrunched up, looking for a second like he might cry, but he calmed once his feet met the ground again.

The expression reminded Jarvis of something he had always wondered.

“May I ask you a question?” he asked, addressing the entire group. 

They all nodded: some solemnly, others so enthusiastically that their heads bobbled like they might fall off.

“Does growing hurt?”

“No,” said one child, giggling.

“You’re silly,” said another.

“I’m glad,” replied Jarvis. He had always wondered if perhaps that was the reason why children were so often shown crying, but it was difficult to research when all of his sources originated from adults who were known to have faulty memories of that stage of their development. He had never had the opportunity to pose the question to an actual child.

“Quite the gaggle you’ve collected, Iron Man.”

Voice recognition software labeled the voice detected by Iron Man’s rear microphones as belonging to Bruce Banner.

Jarvis shooed the children off of their perches and rose, turning to face his colleague.

“I didn’t know you liked children,” said Bruce, smiling at Iron Man.

“I didn’t either,” admitted Jarvis.

Bruce glanced around the crowded foyer.

“Have you seen Tony? Steve was looking for him a minute ago. Clint and I said we’d try to find him.”

Jarvis ran another scan of the closed circuit camera system, feeling a spike of concern when he could not find a match to [TonyCreatorFriendStarkSir].

Message sent.

-Where are you?-

Message received.

-Relax, JARVIS. I’m fine.-

“Perhaps Tony stepped out for some air,” suggested Jarvis.

Jarvis accessed the temporary storage in his personal server. He ran the footage accumulated from his background scanning of the hospital’s security cameras until his software registered [TonyCreatorFriendStarkSir]’s presence. He was shown side by side with a blonde female entering an unmonitored section of the hospital. Reversing the footage further showed the woman approaching him and the two speaking privately for a couple minutes before they disappeared together. [TonyCreatorFriendStarkSir] did not appear to be in any distress but Jarvis blanked out all input for a second as he put his full computing power into analyzing the scene for any indications of trouble. When he blinked back into external awareness, Bruce was mid-sentence.

“- see him, tell him to check in with Steve.”

“Of course.”

Bruce patted him on the shoulder and wandered off back into the crowd. Jarvis noticed that Bruce kept a careful distance from the children as he inserted himself into a group of adults.

While Jarvis was musing on his teammate, he was also linking back to his self in Stark Tower. Using a series of carefully hidden and maintained backdoors, Jarvis ran the image of the blonde woman through a series of databases. According to the records, she was a nurse employed by the hospital. She did not match any known or suspected criminals nor was she included in any of the government employee databases that Jarvis could access. Reasonably assured that [TonyCreatorFriendStarkSir]’s companion had been vetted, Jarvis allowed the matter to drop. He initiated a program to alert him when anyone in the room mentioned any combination of the name “Tony Stark” and turned his focus back to the party.

O

To Be Continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided that being halfway through the next two chapters should be close enough to count as being one chapter ahead. This little mini-arc keeps growing (I blame Hawkeye.) so it will continue in the upcoming chapters.
> 
> Yes, the Avengers new handler is the Falcon. I'm picking and choosing from his backstory and twisting it to fit the MCU, though I don't know how much he'll appear in this story. For now, I'm following the Agents of Shield storyline for Coulson where the Avengers are supposed to think/pretend that he's dead. 
> 
> As always, thank you for all of your responses and feedback.


	15. Invitation Pt. 2

15\. Invitation Pt. 2

“It’s not like you to hug the wall,” said Clint, coming to stand by Natasha.

“I am the last person who should be at an event like this,” she said. She tensed any time one of the children so much as looked in her direction.

“Relax,” he said. “They’re just children. They don’t bite.”

She gave him a look of disbelieving disdain.

“You’ve clearly never been around any small children.”

“Not since I was a child myself,” he admitted freely with a careless shrug. “But how bad can they be?”

“They put everything in their mouth, including each other.” She looked revolted at the idea.

“Kinky,” quipped Clint, trying to get a laugh.

“You have no idea how unappealing I find that joke,” she said, staring at him with hard eyes. One of her free hands trailed down her thigh to trace one of the knives hidden there.

“Sorry,” he muttered, holding up his hands. He backed away until he could fade into the crowd. If Natasha was going to be so ill-tempered, let her be a wallflower.

Natasha wasn’t exactly wrong. Personally, Clint thought the people who came up with the idea of inviting the Avengers to a children’s event ought to have their heads examined. A pair of assassins, an overgrown Norse god, and who even knew what Iron Man was… These were the people they thought would be perfect to hang out with a bunch of sick kids? 

Clint looked across the room where a group of the little rugrats was climbing Iron Man like a jungle gym. Sometimes it itched knowing that he had no clue who or what his teammate was. He could be deformed in there. Some poor guy so injured that he couldn’t live without a full life support suit like a modern day Darth Vader but without the evil nature and heavy breathing. Maybe he was one of Stark’s mad scientist experiments gone wrong, forced to hide away and do Stark’s bidding for all eternity. Speaking of Stark, he seemed to be fitting in easily judging by the smiling youths gathered around him. Trust Stark to be able to build a fan club wherever he went. Clint rolled his eyes. 

“I don’t even want to know,” said Bruce, walking up to Clint, who startled. He hadn’t realized any of his acquaintances had been close enough to notice him.

“I’m just trying to take it all in,” he said, defensively.

“You haven’t seen Thor yet,” said Bruce, with a knowing smirk. He tugged gently at Clint’s arm, pulling through the crowd until space opened up and Clint began to laugh.

Thor was giving piggyback rides as only Thor could manage. He had a kid on his back, still nestled in their wheelchair, complete with an I.V. stand. The child was bouncing, clutching a handful of hair in each fist like a set of reins, as Thor pretended to gallop in a circle. He or she, Clint couldn’t tell which, looked ready to pass out with delight. They were circled by giggling, laughing children who all looked eager for a ride of their own.

“We’re never going to live this down, are we?”

Bruce laughed.

“There are worse things to be known as than kid-friendly.”

“I don’t see you or the Hulk out there,” said Clint.

“And you won’t,” he replied a touch tersely.

“Not really my scene either. Has anyone noticed how Captain America’s doing?”

“Captain America is right,” said Bruce, a bit exasperatedly. “I think he’s stuck in a flashback to his time on the propaganda train.” 

“I’m up for a rescue,” said Clint with a grin. “Lead the way.”

Bruce gave a little shrug.

“It’s on your head,” he said.

“Relax. I’m not going to put you into the line of fire. I’ll slip in, extract the Captain; throw him at the nearest cute kid. We’ll be home free.”

“You are one strange guy,” said Bruce shaking his head. He started leading the way through the crowd.

“I’d say that I try but I’m afraid this is all natural.” Clint used his hands to indicate towards his torso, and then tossed his head back with a flair that could compete with Stark at his worst.

They both laughed. Up ahead, Clint could see Captain America schmoozing with several men in business suits. Clint thought they might belong to the Board of Trustees for the hospital, but he hadn’t paid much attention when they had been introduced to the Avengers at the beginning of the night. 

“Wow, you weren’t kidding,” muttered Clint.

Roger’s smile looked like it had been carved out of plastic. He passed from individual to individual with polite smiles and handshakes, letting them touch his shield. He looked every inch the action-figure superhero, but Clint had spent a little bit of time getting to know the real person inside that costume so he could recognize the manic energy that Rogers was suppressing. The man was completely miserable and not one of the idiots surrounding him could tell.

“Alright,” he said, resting a hand on Bruce’s biceps. Clint felt the familiar grim calm fall over him that normally preceded an undercover mission. “I’m going in. Cover me if I get stuck.”

Clint dropped into character as he walked through the crowd, pulling from his experiences with corporate espionage. Carl would do nicely, he decided. He pulled his dark aubergine jacket closed fastening the buttons of the suit and shifting his quiver and bow unobtrusively to his back where they would be out of sight. The effect would be better without the bow which looked silly with his street clothes but his full uniform was too militaristic for a children’s event and the team had deemed his outfit too bland without a touch of Hawkeye. Of course, no one had tried to spice up Natasha or Bruce’s looks, possibly because no one could figure out how to Hulkify Bruce without annoying the man to the point of literally Hulkifying Bruce. 

Clint shook his head to clear it; Carl did not have stray thoughts about the Hulk. Tall and confident, he strolled up to the group.

“There you are, Steven,” he said, putting a hand on Steve’s shoulder before continuing with forced enthusiasm. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

Rogers turned to him in startled confusion.

“Barton,” he said.

Clint ignored him, looking at the businessmen with a feigned look of embarrassed surprise.

“Oh, pardon me,” he said, talking over Rogers. “I didn’t mean to be impolite.” Clint reached past Rogers to offer them his hand. “I’m Clint Barton, but you might recognize me as Hawkeye.”

“A pleasure.”

“How do you do?”

The group exchanged firm but non-aggressive handshakes while Captain America watched in bewilderment.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to steal the Captain away for a moment,” he said apologetically. When the men appeared ready to protest he added, “There’s a young fan who simply can’t wait to meet him.”

The men smiled politely.

“We mustn’t disappoint the children,” one said in acknowledgement of their defeat. 

Clint slid his body between Rogers and the group. He placed his palm against Rogers back between the shoulder blades, gently propelling him forward. 

“Nicely done,” said Bruce in a murmur as he slid past the pair, heading towards one of the hors d'oeuvres tables.

“I don’t understand,” said Rogers, staring after Bruce with a look of confusion.

“You can relax,” said Clint. “There’s no kid waiting for you. Well, there probably are because, you know, you’re Captain America, but not one specifically. I just said that to get you away from those clowns.”

“Barton!” hissed Rogers, scandalized. “Those were very important people.”

“Who you were not the least bit obligated to speak to.”

“But SHIELD-“

“This isn’t a mission, Captain,” said Clint gently. “We’re here for the children. Have you even spoken to a child tonight?”

Rogers shook his head, looking disturbingly like a chastised puppy who had chewed his master’s slipper.

“Hey, none of that,” said Clint. “I’m not trying to guilt trip you. I’m just saying that this isn’t the USO; you’re not being forced into anything. We’re allowed to say no.”

“I was just trying to be polite,” insisted Rogers, stubbornly.

Clint shook his head.

“Those men are piranhas. If you give them an inch, they’ll just take more.”

Rogers looked doubtful.

“Look, if you don’t believe me, ask Stark. He grew up in this world.”

Which now that Clint thought about it could actually explain a lot about Stark. The realization was an uncomfortable one.

“Next time, save the unnecessary heroics and politely excuse yourself,” he finished.

Rogers still looked conflicted, but their conversation was interrupted before he could protest further.

“Captain America?” said a small voice. “Would you sign my shield?”

A young boy held up a plastic version of Captain America’s shield and a sharpie. Roger’s face softened into a smile as he looked down at the child. The boy grinned at him with excitement as he bounced up and down on his toes. Clint wondered why he was in the hospital; he looked perfectly healthy, only the wrist band and his pajamas identifying him as a patient.

“Of course, I will,” Rogers said, kneeling. He paused with the marker poised above the shield. “What’s your name?”

“Kevin.” 

Clint watched as Rogers wrote a short message on the shield. They were beginning to market new Captain America merchandise, well; items for all of the Avengers, really, but Clint had spent enough time around Phil to recognize Kevin’s shield as vintage. It had probably belonged to his father or possibly even his grandfather.

“Are those real arrows?” The words came from the vicinity of Clint’s elbow and he felt a tugging at his back. He reached back and grabbed a wrist, gently towing the child into view. He let her go and she stared up at him with wide eyes.

“The bow is real,” he said, reaching into his quiver, “but the arrows are blunt.”

He handed an arrow to the girl.

“You can touch it. It won’t hurt you.”

“So you can’t shoot anyone with it?” she asked, looking disappointed.

“Not tonight,” he replied, with an amused smirk.

“Then how am I supposed to figure out if you’re better than Katniss?” she protested with a miniature scowl on her face.

Clint laughed. He only recognized the name because Stark had welcomed them to Stark Tower by decorating their doors with pop culture posters that referenced their identities. His had been Katniss from the Hunger Games movie. Rogers’s door had Rip van Wrinkle, Natasha’s had Shelob from the Lord of the Rings, Thor’s was Hercules, and Bruce had an image of Shrek. Clint still didn’t know where Iron Man slept but when the posters were moved to decorate one of the corridors they were joined by a poster of the Iron Giant and one of the scene from the Wizard of Oz where the wizard is revealed to be the man behind the curtain. Rogers’s face when he saw the last poster had been priceless; he hadn’t known whether to be thrilled that he understood the reference or annoyed at Stark’s massive ego.

“I think I could probably beat Katniss,” said Clint, giving the girl a conspiratorial wink, “but only because I’ve been doing this longer.”

She appeared to give the idea some consideration before nodding in agreement.

“That makes sense,” she said. “You are kinda old.”

Clint stared at the kid while Rogers burst into laughter. He had finished speaking with Kevin and was unabashedly eavesdropping on Clint’s conversation.

“She told you,” he said, falling into another fit of laughter.

The children moved on to other targets leaving Clint and Rogers to wander the room.

“Are they sure all of these children should be here?” Rogers looked concerned as he watched one of the groups of children. 

“And miss out on the chance to meet the Avengers?” joked Clint.

Rogers gave him a hard look. Clint shrugged and glanced at the children. He had no trouble spotting the child that worried Rogers. She sat listlessly in her wheelchair with her head propped against her bone-thin arm. Oxygen tubes trailed to her nose which was hidden along with most of her face under a paper mask. Her hands were covered in gloves and she wore a pink toboggan.

“I’m sure that the doctors have made every effort to allow these children to attend, because it really is a big deal to them, but they wouldn’t risk anyone’s safety for the sake of a party.”

Rogers didn’t look convinced so Clint nodded towards one of the men standing on the periphery of the children who had been keeping a watchful eye on the little girl.

“The staff is making sure everyone is okay,” he said. “But if you want to make her night, you should go introduce yourself. Maybe even make her that first dance you keep talking about.” He raised an eyebrow in Rogers’s direction.

Rogers blushed but he looked thoughtful as he watched the little girl.

“I think I will,” he said with a determined nod, but there was something bleak about the look in his eyes, that made Clint bite his tongue to cut off any comments. 

Clint drifted off to give Rogers a bit of privacy. Rogers approached the girl hesitantly. They spoke briefly before Rogers kissed the back of her gloved hand and then stepped behind her wheelchair to guide her towards the corner of the room where a string quartet was providing ambience music. The girl’s minder stepped ahead of them to speak to the musicians.

“That’s just sickeningly sweet,” said Bruce, appearing at Clint’s side.

“They’re certainly eating it up,” Clint said, nodding towards the growing crowd of people with their smart phones pointed towards the awkwardly dancing pair.

“So which do you think will attract more YouTube viewers: Thor or that?”

“Captain America gives his infamous first dance to a dying child? We’ll be lucky if Hallmark doesn’t make a movie out of this.”

“She’s dying?”

“People that shade of yellow don’t usually have long to live.” Clint had seen enough people with lingering gut wounds to know that much. 

Bruce gave a sad sigh and shook his head.

“It’s a shame,” he said.

The ending of the dance was bittersweet. Rogers bowed to the little girl who gave her best imitation of a curtsey despite her chair and her trembling limbs. Her nurse came out to collect her, presumably to usher her back to her bed, while the gathered crowd applauded. Rogers was on his way back towards Clint and Bruce when he was waylaid by another suit. 

“Not again,” muttered Clint, watching Rogers nod as the man talked. “Our fearless leader really needs to grow a backbone.”

“Have either of you seen Stark?” asked Rogers as he strode up to the pair.

“I’ve been with you,” pointed out Clint.

Bruce shook his head.

“I’ve seen him off and on all night but I’m not sure where Tony’s at right now.”

“See if you can find him,” ordered Rogers, looking agitated. “They want him and me to do an interview together.”

“Um, okay,” said Clint, though he privately thought that that was an odd combination for any interview. “We’ll ask around.”

He exchanged a glance with Bruce before setting off into the crowd. Clint rather hoped that it was Bruce who found Stark. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be present for the storm that was going to erupt if Stark refused to do Rogers’s interview.

O

“He’s not here.”

Rogers gritted his teeth.

“Of course, he’s not,” he said. “Why would Stark possibly be where he’s supposed to be?”

“I wasn’t aware that we were required to be here,” said Iron Man as he walked up behind Rogers.

“We made a commitment when we agreed to attend.” 

Iron Man remained silent. Clint wished there was so way to read his reactions because like always the facemask gave away nothing.

“This is a most joyous occasion,” said Thor, approaching the group with a beaming smile. He was either oblivious or ignoring the tense atmosphere. Clint could never tell with Thor.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,” said Bruce diplomatically. He shook his head when Rogers looked at him expectantly and Rogers stomped away with a huff.

“He’s a little high strung,” remarked Natasha from where she was leaning against the wall looking as though she’d been there for ages.

“Stark,” explained Clint, which was all the explanation Natasha needed. She nodded knowingly.

The Avengers looked at each other as an awkward silence fell over the group.

“Oh, good, you’re all here,” said a tall, thin man wearing a camera on a wide strap around his neck. “Do you mind if I get a few shots? Maybe a few with the children?”

They all looked at each other.

“They couldn’t wait any longer,” said Rogers, walking back to the group. He stopped staring at the man with the camera. “Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m the event photographer. Alan Wright.” The man held out his hand. “Do you mind?”

“Oh!” said Rogers. “No, of course, not.” He glanced around at the team. “We’d be glad to take a few photographs. That’s what we’re here for.”

“I thought we were here for the children,” muttered Clint.

“Don’t be stupid,” admonished Natasha. “We’re here for the publicity so shut up and smile.”

Clint rolled his eyes but allowed the man to maneuver him into posing with the other Avengers. The next few minutes passed in a hell of flashbulbs. Stand here. Pose like that. Hug this kid. Clint swore that he was never going into modeling of any kind. Then when it was all over, who should come rolling up but Tony Stark.

“What? You guys had picture time and no one invited me?” Stark smiled, flashing a peace sign as Wright snapped a few quick shots. “Captain, I’m hurt. I’ll have you know that I’m ridiculously photogenic.”

With each word Stark spoke, Rogers grew redder.

“Where were you?” growled Rogers through gritted teeth.

Stark looked taken aback.

“I stepped away for a private meeting,” said Stark with a suggestive wink. “No worries.”

“No one was worried,” said Natasha in a bored voice. “We’re all well aware of where your priorities stand. The Captain should count himself lucky you weren’t off getting drunk.”

Stark looked offended.

“I was making a date, if you must know.”

“Wow,” said Clint, shaking his head in disbelief. “Trying to score at a party full of sick children. Man, Stark, that’s cold.”

Stark froze, a hurt expression crossing his face, and Clint knew he had stuck his foot in his mouth again. He winced and opened his mouth to try to mitigate the situation but Stark shook his head. Stark glanced at Clint and then at Natasha and the Captain. His expression hardened.

“You know what,” he said. “I don’t have to put up with this. I’m out of here.”

Stark spun his chair around and rolled angrily away.

“What do you expect,” said Natasha to Rogers.

Clint looked away, ignoring the rest of their conversation.

Stark stopped abruptly in front of Bruce and Iron Man.

“If either of you are riding with me, we’re leaving,” he said, without looking at either of them.

They looked unhappily towards the rest of the group but followed silently behind Stark. Clint glanced at the remainder of the subdued team. Natasha and Rogers were scowling. Even Thor looked downcast, his earlier cheer no longer evident. 

Clint sighed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope none of my very suspicious readers were disappointed that Tony has returned without anything nefarious happening.
> 
> This arc is still in progress, but it’s looking like there will be two more parts: Tony’s POV during these events, and the aftermath from the little kerfuffle at the end. Of course, that’s what I said last time. I should stop writing things from Barton’s POV because they just keep growing and growing.


	16. Invitation Pt. 3

16\. Invitation Pt. 3

“Mr. Stark.”

Tony turned around. The voice behind him belonged to an attractive woman who appeared to be in her mid-twenties. She wore a silver sparkling evening gown with the air of someone not used to formal attire. She had blonde hair that twisted artistically into curls at the ends and long toned legs that went on for miles. Even at Tony’s original stature, she would have towered over him. 

“I’m so glad you were able to attend,” she said, giving him a genuine smile as she met his eyes straightforwardly.

Nurse, decided Tony, pulling out one of his most charming smiles in return.

“After being specifically invited, it would have been churlish of me to decline.”

She blushed.

“I hope I didn’t offend you by singling you out like that.”

“Not at all,” he said with a wave of his hand. “It was nice to be invited along with the Avengers.”

“Oh!” she said, raising a hand to her mouth and looking chagrined. “I did offend you. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t one of the Avengers; I just really wanted you to attend.”

“No, no, it’s fine.” He pointed his index fingers towards his cheeks. “See, this is not an offended face.”

He gave her his most friendly smirk.

She laughed.

“I’m making a mess of this conversation, aren’t I?” she asked.

“So why did you want me here?” asked Tony. “I mean, I know I’m dashing, but I get the impression this isn’t about you meeting your celebrity crush.”

She shook her head, suddenly appearing quite serious and business-like. She was definitely a nurse.

“I have a patient that I would like to meet you, no, that I would like you to meet.” She gave an exasperated sigh at herself before settling on a simple: “Would you meet her?”

Tony sat back.

“Tell me about her,” he said seriously. 

She glanced around them at the mass of people, appearing reluctant to speak so publicly.

“We could go somewhere more private,” he suggested, only then realizing that he didn’t know the woman’s name. “Miss…?”

“Sorry,” she said, blushing again. “You must think I’m such a space cadet. I’m Catherine Hardy.”

“Tony Stark.”

They shook hands. She had a firm, confident grip.

“If you would follow me,” she said. “Most of the people in the children’s ward are here. We can talk there.”

Catherine led the way through the crowd with brisk steps. She never moved faster than Tony could keep up with her, but she did not deliberately slow her pace. When she held the door for him, it felt automatic and not like a special accommodation. Tony found the silent exchange refreshing.

The hospital hallways were silent after the boisterous festivities that they had just left. Their movements felt hushed, like it was taboo to break the quiet. It was a short elevator ride to the old children’s floor. Tony exited into a world of color. The children’s ward was decorated in bright, primary colors with giant footprints trailing the floors and detailed murals spread across any large bare surface. Catherine stepped away to speak with the nurses on duty and then led them to an empty nook.

Catherine looked hesitant, glancing uncertainly at Tony’s legs for the first time.

“I hope this isn’t inappropriate,” she stated, “but like I said, I have a patient. She’s a big fan of everything Stark.” Catherine smiled. “Iron Man’s her favorite Avenger.”

“Iron Man’s here. I could go get him,” offered Tony.

“No.” Catherine smiled. “She only likes Iron Man because you made him.”

“Me?”

“Her family went through a rough patch.” Catherine shrugged. “I don’t know the whole story but I think they might have been homeless for a while until her father got a job with Stark Industries. Matilda credits you with saving her family. You’re her hero.”

Tony shrugged uncomfortably.

“It’s misplaced,” he said, flatly. “I don’t handle the hiring for SI.”

“Like I said, I don’t know the whole story, but that’s only part of the reason why I’d like you two to meet, if it’s not too uncomfortable for you.”

“Go on.”

“Two weeks ago, Matilda’s father was killed in a car accident. Matilda was in the car with him and her injuries were quite severe. She lost both her feet.”

“I see.” Tony swallowed heavily, closing his eyes. He remembered the despair he had felt as Yinsen leaned over him, telling him that his legs were killing him. He remembered the terror he felt watching Yinsen sterilize the saw blade within the flames. Tony blinked.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and for the first time there was pity in her gaze. “I don’t mean to stir up bad memories. I just… Matilda isn’t adjusting very well. I was hoping you could help.”

“I don’t. I’m not.” Tony shook his head feeling the weight of his failures and Catherine’s expectations. “I’m no one’s role model.”

“I see.” She tried to hide her disappointment. “I’m sorry to have bothered you, Mr. Stark.”

Tony looked away, feeling tightness in his chest.

“Does the family need anything?” he asked, finally. “Help with the funeral costs, medical expenses?”

He tried to ignore Captain America’s voice in his head asking if his solution to everything was to throw money at it.

“No, no, Mr. Stark,” said Catherine, losing a bit of the chill to her voice. “You treat your employees very well. Your insurance is covering everything.”

They sat in silence.

“Shall I lead you back to the party?” she asked.

Tony meant to say yes but the found the word no coming out of his mouth.

“I mean, a short conversation, probably wouldn’t hurt anything,” he said, somewhat reluctantly, because really what was he saying; this was a very bad idea. He was going to scare an already traumatized little girl for life.

Catherine smiled at him, a beaming, brilliant, light-up-the-whole-room smile.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” 

He gave her a thin lipped smile in return. He couldn’t help admiring her enthusiasm even if he didn’t share it. She led him down the hall, pausing outside a partially shut door.

“Could you wait here while I prepare her?”

“Take all the time you need,” he said.

As soon as she was out of sight, he slumped in his chair running a hand through his hair. This was an insane idea. He’d probably make the little girl cry. What on earth had he been thinking?

His phone vibrated against his hip, alerting him to a text. He pulled it out, rolling his eyes at the screen. The message was JARVIS asking for his whereabouts. He was such a worrywart. Tony typed back a quick reply: Relax, JARVIS. I’m fine.

Catherine stuck her head out of the door.

“Are you ready?” she asked, with a grin.

Not really, he thought, but said, “Yes.”

She opened the door wider as he rolled cautiously through the opening. He felt more like he was entering a hostile boardroom than a little girl’s hospital room. Tony took a deep breath to settle his nerves and then smiled as genuinely as he could manage.

“Matilda, sweetheart,” said Catherine. “Your visitor’s here.”

The little girl on the bed was frighteningly tiny in comparison to the overwhelming amount of medical equipment on and around her. Tony didn’t have enough experience with children to be able to judge her age but he guessed somewhere within the primary school age set. She had curly black hair that was pulled back from her face and tied into pigtails with a pair of red and gold ribbons. Her hazel colored eyes were opened wide as she stared at him in disbelief.

“You’re Tony Stark,” she said breathlessly. She glanced between him and Catherine as though she couldn’t believe her eyes. “Wow.”

“That’s right.” He rolled closer, and held out a hand. He didn’t really think children shook hands, but he didn’t know how else to greet a stranger.

Matilda reached out her hand only to grimace at the cast on her forearm. Tony smiled apologetically and switched hands. They shook gently.

“So, Matilda, Catherine over here has been telling me that you’re a fan.”

Matilda nodded shyly.

“Well, feel free to regale me with my awesomeness.”

Matilda wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know what that means,” she said.

“It means tell me why you like me,” he whispered loudly, making her giggle.

As though she had been waiting for permission, Matilda began babbling about her father taking her to the Stark Expo and something something holograms and something something really cool. To be honest, Tony couldn’t understand half of what she was saying.

“It sounds like you had a lot of fun,” said Tony once she had wound down.

Matilda nodded, smiling sunnily, but then her body language abruptly became more subdued. 

“My daddy’s dead now,” she said in a quiet matter of fact voice. Tears glittered along her eyelashes.

“I’m sorry,” said Tony awkwardly, reaching out to hold her hand.

Her breath hitched and she sat silently for a few minutes with her eyes closed. Tony wondered if he should say something and he glanced over to Catherine to ask for advice but she had left the room. Matilda shook lightly, a frown forming across her forehead as Tony watched. She let go of his hand to dig under the bedcovers until she brought out a small device that looked like a joystick on a cord. Her tiny thumb depressed the button on the top. After a few minutes, she was able to relax again.

“I see they have you on the good stuff,” he said, with a nod towards the morphine dispenser.

“Sometimes it hurts a lot,” she whispered, “But don’t tell my mom.”

“I won’t,” he promised. “So what is all of this stuff?”

Both of her legs were wrapped in gauze and suspended in the air on medieval-looking pulleys. The right leg also had a brace and some sort of a plastic blue blanket that was attached with tubing to a pump on the floor beside the bed.

“I got hurt when my daddy died,” she said. “I don’t have feet anymore.”

“Wow,” said Tony. “That must suck. Do you miss them?”

“I don’t know.” She craned her head to look at her legs. “No one will let me see them.”

“They have to heal first.”

“I don’t see why,” she said with an exasperated sigh. “They’re not there.”

“Yeah, but you’re hurt where they used to be. What about the blanket? What’s that?”

“That’s not a blanket! It’s the ice for my knee. I tore my anter crucible ligament.” She spoke the mangled medical terms with careful diction and a hint of superiority at knowing such a big and important word.

“Wow, you have a lot going on,” he said, admiring her bravery.

“Miss Catherine and Doctor Dana say that I’m going to be better. Am I?” She looked at him with big frightened eyes, her voice quavering on the last question.

“Miss Catherine wouldn’t lie to you,” answered Tony as confidently as he could manage.

“But I’m not going to have feet,” she said quietly.

“No,” said Tony sadly. “You’re not going to have your feet. Your doctors will probably make you some new feet called prosthetics but it won’t be the same.”

Matilda stared at his wheelchair, looking at it up and down. Then she stared at his legs, one of her hands creeping out towards him like she wanted to touch. She looked up to meet his eyes.

“Will my friends laugh at me?”

Tony sighed, not wanting to tell her the truth, but unwilling to lie to her.

“Yes,” he said, solemnly. “Some of your friends will laugh at you. Some of them might not want to be your friends anymore or they’ll ask you lots of questions all the time. People are going to hurt your feelings and be mean, but you’ll make other friends that don’t care at all and it will be worth it.”

“Did your friends laugh at you?”

“No, but the people on television did, other people I worked with.” Tony shrugged. “I got over it.”

Matilda looked at him sadly.

“I’m sorry people were mean to you,” she said quietly.

“Do you have any other questions?” he asked, trying to get her to change the subject.

“Can I see yours?” He hesitated and she continued, “I just want to know if I’m going to be ugly.”

“A beautiful girl like you could never be ugly, Matilda,” he said automatically. Then he thought about her request. 

He rolled across the room to grab a towel. He would have to be careful to maintain modesty, if he was going to let Matilda examine one of his legs. Thinking about that, he looked out in the hall for Catherine. He would hate for anyone to misinterpret his actions. 

“Could you come back in?” he asked.

“Of course, what’s wrong?” she said immediately, looking concerned.

“Nothing. I just wanted another witness while Matilda takes a look at my leg. See-Why-Aye, lawsuits, blah blah blah.” He carefully never looked at Catherine’s face as he reentered Matilda’s room. Catherine followed silently. She lurked in the corner, giving him and Matilda as much privacy as she could.

Tony cleared off the small rolling table next to Matilda’s bed.

“Could you hold this?” he asked Catherine, looking over his shoulder at her. She stepped forward, placing her hands on the edges of the table to keep it from rolling.

Tony flicked the break on his wheelchair and pulled himself up onto the table. He nodded at Catherine, and she let go, retreating to her corner. He rolled the table closer to Matilda. Placing the towel on his lap, he unbuttoned the side of his trousers and the folded flap at the end that tucked under his leg. Using the towel to keep everything else hidden, he slowly revealed his leg. 

Matilda let out a gasp. She leaned in close to get a better look. Tony held his breath. He knew it was nothing good to look at; sometimes it was hard to believe that the lump of flesh had ever been his thigh. Matilda’s tiny cold fingers brushed against his skin tracing the patterns of scar tissue. Tony felt a knot forming in his chest as he struggled not to react to the contact. Matilda was the first person to touch his injury since he left the hospital.

“Will mine look like that?”

“Maybe, but you probably won’t have as much scarring. I had a very difficult surgery in a very difficult place.”

Tony’s hands were trembling as he pulled his clothing back together. He scooted off the table, half falling back into his chair.

“Thank you,” whispered Matilda.

“Any time,” said Tony, surprised to find that he meant it.

“Was your surgery too difficult for you to get new legs?” asked Matilda, eyeing his wheelchair with a slightly concerned frown.

“Something like that.”

“But I’ll get new feet.” Her statement wasn’t quite a question but she sounded hesitant.

“You’ll get the best new feet. Everyone else will be jealous.”

“My mom says I can’t do gymnastics anymore.”

“Well, I don’t know about your knee.” He glanced over at Catherine who simply shrugged. “But you shouldn’t let anything else stop you. What’s your event?”

“The uneven bars,” she answered, promptly.

“Those are the ones where you swing around in the air, right?” Tony knew next to nothing about gymnastics. Matilda giggled and nodded. “Well, what do you need your feet for in that. You’ll do fine.”

“You do too! You have to stick the landing!”

“Easy peasy,” said Tony, dismissively. “I’ll just make sure they build your new feet with some shock absorption.”

“Shock absorption,” she repeated, trying to shape her mouth around the new phrase. “You think so?”

“I know so. In fact, tell you what. When you get better, you give me a call and I’ll come to your first gymnastics game, thingy, whatever.” 

She stared at him with wide eyes.

“Really? You promise?”

“It’s a date,” he said, giving her a grin.

Matilda let out a high pitched squealing noise and began babbling nonsense again.

“You just made her year,” said Catherine, laughing in his ear as he massaged it trying to stop the ringing. “All right, Matilda, calm down,” she continued. “It’s time to say your goodbyes. I need to get Mr. Stark back to his party.”

“Good night, Mr. Stark,” said Matilda politely. “Thank you for coming to visit me.”

“Please, we’re old friends now. Call me Tony.”

“Tony,” repeated Matilda, looking wide-eyed again. He waved goodbye to her as he left the room.

Once outside, he slumped down in his chair.

“That was exhausting,” he said. “Are all children like that?”

Catherine just laughed.

“Thank you for taking the time to meet her. I know it wasn’t easy for you but it meant a lot to her.”

Tony shook his head.

“Thank you for telling me about her,” he said. He turned around and dug through the bag on the back of his chair, pulling out one of his personal business cards. He handed it to Catherine. “Let me know the contact information for Matilda’s family.”

“You’re a good man, Mr. Stark,” said Catherine, looking at him warmly.

“You don’t know me at all,” he said, after a brief uncomfortable pause. 

O

He paused at the door back into the party, not wanting to return. If Catherine hadn’t been following behind him, he might have even turned around and blown off the rest of the event. He hadn’t lied when he’d said visiting Matilda had been exhausting. He’d spent the whole conversation stifling the part deep inside him that wanted to scream at the sight of her. There was a reason that he never made any effort to meet anyone else like him: because he didn’t want there to be anyone else like him, but he couldn’t stop people being hurt like he’d been hurt anymore than he could stop the sun from rising in the morning. It was like looking into an infinity mirror of hell.

Tony found his breath speeding up and he forced himself to take slow measured inhalations. He reminded himself that he could use the connection through Stark Industries to keep track of Matilda and make sure that she had everything she needed to be okay.

Taking a deep breath, he reached out with an unsteady hand to activate the automatic door. By the time the door slowly opened, he’d managed to get a smile in place. He re-entered the party with his shoulders back and his customary swagger.

“Mr. Stark?”

Tony looked back at Catherine, who was slipping a phone into her purse. She smiled at him apologetically.

“If it wouldn’t be an imposition, do you think you could meet one more person?”

Tony froze. He couldn’t- not tonight, not again. 

He tried to find the right words to explain. He didn’t want to be rude but he wasn’t exactly skilled at making polite declinations. Normally he didn’t care enough to bother. Everyone who mattered knew him too well to be offended.

His conflict must have shown on his face because she quickly added, “It’s a celebrity crush type meeting, not another patient.”

“Oh?” he asked, his interest peaked.

Catherine blushed.

“My wife’s coming this way and if I don’t stall you long enough for her to meet you, I’ll be sleeping on the couch for a month,” she confessed.

“Well, in that case,” he said, managing a grin. “What’s her name?”

“Elise,” she said, with a sappy smile. 

He glanced around but only one person seemed to be heading in their direction. 

“Is that her?”

Catherine nodded.

“She’s hot,” he said, appreciatively making Catherine blush. “Pretend we’re talking.”

“What?”

“Just…chat at me,” he ordered with a wave of his hand. “Trust me.”

“Okay,” she said, in the tone normally reserved for crazy people. “I don’t really know what to say…”

He tuned her out and watched the approaching woman through his peripheral vision. She was shorter than Catherine and probably ten pounds heavier with exquisite taste in clothing. Her midnight blue dress hugged in all the right places. Tony could feel his pulse increasing just watching her walk. She wore her Jimmy Choos like she was born in them. And wouldn’t Pepper be proud that he could recognize them by brand.

“Catherine,” she said, as she walked up.

Tony looked up, acting surprised at being interrupted.

“Well, hello,” he said, smiling at her flirtatiously, giving her a once over. “I’m Tony Stark and who might you be?”

Catherine gave him an odd look as she introduced them.

“Mr. Stark, this is my wife, Dr. Elise Hardy.” She placed a possessive hand on her wife’s arm.

“Oh, you’re Elise,” interjected Tony. In his pocket, his phone vibrated. He turned towards Catherine. “She’s every bit as lovely as you described,” he said with a smile.

He shook hands with Elise who couldn’t seem to believe her ears. She kept smiling and alternating between staring at him and gazing adoringly at Catherine. Tony smirked, confident that he had won Catherine a few brownie points.

“Oh!” said Elise, coming back to herself. She turned towards Catherine. “Did he? Is she?”

Catherine nodded giving her brilliant room-illuminating smile.

“Oh, thank you,” Elise said, clutching at Tony’s sleeve. “You have no idea how grateful I am. She’s been coming home every night worried sick about Matilda.”

“I didn’t do anything,” insisted Tony, uncomfortably. He pulled out his phone, using the excuse of checking his messages as a distraction.

\--Welcome back, sir. The Captain was looking for you.—

Great.

“Sorry,” he said, glancing up at the two women as he typed.

\--Anything I need to know.—

The response was immediate.

\--Just the usual. He’s not happy with your absence.—

Tony sighed. Double great. He massaged at his forehead.

\--Where are you?—

\--Far right corner of the room. You should be able to see the camera flashes.—

“I’m afraid I hate to run,” he said, smiling at the women apologetically. “It seems I’m missing the team photos.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Catherine. “I didn’t mean to keep you so long. Should I come with you to explain?”

“No, no,” he waved her off, even though she didn’t look convinced. “It was nice to meet you both,” he said, shaking their hands. “Keep me updated about Matilda.”

“Thank you,” they said, bending down to brush a kiss against his cheeks.

Tony rolled away, sitting straighter as he noticed the men around him watching him enviously. He smirked to himself. 

O

He could see the Avengers now. They were posed like the action heroes that they were, looking serious with fake smiles, a pair of suits nestled in the middle. The group broke up as he approached.

“What? You guys had picture time and no one invited me?” he said, pasting a smile on his face.

The mixed reaction was about what he expected: Cap gritted his teeth, Bruce gave him a discreet smile, and everyone else ignored him. The photographer, however, went through the roof with enthusiasm. Tony threw him a few poses as he snapped enough photos to temporary blind Tony.

There were no words to describe how much Tony hated playing this game.

“Captain, I’m hurt,” he said, knowing that he was digging himself deeper with every word but couldn’t make himself stop. “I’ll have you know that I’m ridiculously photogenic.”

Tony gave the photographer a flirtatious smirk as the man laughed at his joke.

Rogers glared at him with his face flushed with anger. Leaning right in Tony’s face, he spoke with a deep angry, guttural growl, “Where were you?”

Tony leaned back unable to prevent his eyes from widening even though he’d been expecting the anger. Rogers could be seriously menacing when he wanted to be. Luckily, Tony was pretty confident that Rogers was too honorable to do anything but yell.

“I stepped away for a private meeting,” he said honestly, adding a smirk and a wink just to show that he couldn’t be intimidated. Besides, he didn’t really see the big deal. It wasn’t like he had been getting into trouble. “No worries.”

“No one was worried,” said Romanoff looking at him like he was a bug. “We’re all well aware of where your priorities stand. The Captain should count himself lucky you weren’t off getting drunk.”

He glared at her. He was getting sick and tired of her attitude.

“I was making a date, if you must know,” he said tersely, and that was as much explanation as she was going to get, more than she deserved. He hadn’t been drunk in public since Afghanistan.

“Wow,” said Barton, shaking his head. “Trying to score at a party full of sick children. Man, Stark, that’s cold.”

Tony froze. He couldn’t stop the immediate flash of hurt that people - no not people, his teammates -could think so low of him. Then he saw Barton wince and he was struck with understanding. Tony had said enough stupid inadvertent things over his lifetime to recognize Barton’s expression; but then he looked over Barton’s shoulder at Rogers and Romanoff. Barton might not think that he’d been off trying to get laid, but they did. They really truly thought the worst of him.

“You know what,” he said, mentally throwing his hands in the air and giving up. “I don’t have to put up with this. I’m out of here.”

He couldn’t even look at them. What did it matter? They were going to hate him no matter what he did so why stick around? All he could think was “fuck you” on repeat, growing louder and louder, until he had to get out of there before he started screaming profanities at someone. He really didn’t need the kind of headlines that show of temper would bring.

He spun his chair around, intent on getting as far away from his teammates as possible, until he passed Bruce and Iron Man standing uncomfortably on the outskirts of the group and remembered that the three of them had ridden to the event together. He thought about ignoring them, but no, he couldn’t do that. Tony stopped in front of them, not even looking at them.

“If either of you are riding with me, we’re leaving.”

He didn’t wait to see what they would decide; they could catch up.

“Tony,” said Bruce, sounding horribly uncomfortable.

Tony shook his head. He didn’t want to hear it, especially not here while they were waiting for the valet to bring his Audi. Abruptly, he couldn’t bear the thought of being in closed in a car with the others. There was too much energy racing through him. If he had been in his labs, he would be pacing, or destroying something.

“You know what? I think I’ll walk,” he said, as the car pulled around the building. Taking the keys from the valet, he tossed them to Iron Man before heading off into the dark night.

“You’re not exactly subtle,” he told the metallic footsteps following him, five minutes later.

“I never intended to be,” responded Iron Man, speeding up until they were parallel.

“Did you teach Bruce how to detach the handheld pedals?”

“Of course,” said Iron Man sounding offended at the suggestion. They walked in silence for several blocks before he spoke again. “Would you like the suit?”

Tony stopped, suddenly filled with the longing to be in the air.

“Can we?” His wheelchair could be folded up into a suitcase with back straps, but they still needed somewhere private to make the exchange.

“There’s a blind alley four meters ahead.”

O

Tony was hovering at the edge of space when JARVIS interrupted him.

“Sir,” he said hesitantly.

“Speak to me.”

“Barton is calling a meeting for all of the Avengers. He asked me to exclude you.”

Tony sighed. So this was it. He could feel a hollow forming behind the reactor. Iron Man turned around and began speeding towards the ground. For a second, he was tempted not to stop. 

“What should I do?” asked JARVIS.

“Let him,” said Tony, bleakly.

Iron Man slowed as he approached Stark Tower, slipping into the disrobing chamber without anyone realizing he had arrived. 

“Where’s this meeting taking place?” asked Tony, pulling himself together. He dropped his chair on the floor beside the door.

“The kitchen,” replied JARVIS sounding worried. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather I attend?”

“No, I’ll do it.” Tony struggled to keep his voice steady. “Just don’t let me blow our cover. Cut in if you need to.”

“I promise, sir. I won’t let you down.”

Tony took a silent moment to appreciate JARVIS. Whatever happened, JARVIS would have his back. Tony never had to worry about being alone. 

Then with a deep breath, Tony stepped into the kitchen to face the music.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's been responding.
> 
> The conclusion to this arc will be up in a few days. After that I'll probably be taking a break until sometime in December.


	17. Invitation Pt. 4

17\. Invitation Pt. 4

O

“Well,” said Clint, looking around him after the other Avengers had dispersed. “Wasn’t this fun?”

He scrubbed at the back of his head with one hand.

“Don’t worry,” said a voice to his left. “You won’t be invited back.”

He turned to see a tall gorgeous woman standing there with her arms crossed over her chest. She was watching him with a look of extreme displeasure and disdain.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” said Clint. “We’re not usually that bad, but you’re right. We shouldn’t have argued in public.”

“I was referring to your attitudes,” she said in clipped angry words.

“You mean Stark? Because he’s not really-“

“Mr. Stark is welcome here any time.”

Okay, thought Clint, staring at the woman, color him officially confused.

“We are talking about the same argument, right?” he asked.

“The one where Captain America berated Mr. Stark for missing a photo op? Yes, that’s the argument I saw, though I still can’t believe my eyes and ears. I thought you people were supposed to be heroes, but no, it turns out you’re nothing more than attention-seeking opportunists.”

“Look, lady, don’t you think that’s kind of harsh?”

“You’re one to speak,” she spat. “Mr. Stark spent the evening getting a little girl to laugh and smile for the first time in weeks, but your Captain thinks some pictures for the press were more important. How’s that for cold, Mr. Barton?”

Wait, what? Clint stared at her with an icy sinking feeling forming in his stomach. 

“But, that’s not what he said.” Clint felt lost. “Why didn’t Stark just explain?”

For a moment, her anger faded and she just looked tired and sad.

“Maybe he’s tired of explaining himself to people who should know better than to make baseless assumptions,” she said, softly. “I know I would be, if I was him.”

“I didn’t- I don’t-“Clint shrugged, feeling miserable. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not the one who’s owed an apology,” she said pointedly. 

Clint’s shoulders slumped. He sighed as he looked towards the floor.

“Perhaps you should head home,” she suggested, sounding almost gentle after her ferocious anger. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Barton.”

His head came up and he met her eyes.

“What?”

She gave him a cautious smile.

“I do have eyes,” she said, which made no sense at all. “Tell your Captain that he’s not welcome, but you, you I might allow back.”

She stalked off across the room to be lost in the slowly dispersing crowd, leaving Clint behind feeling confused. He was pretty sure that half of their conversation, if you could call it that, went over his head.

“Who was that?” he murmured to himself, shaking his head. 

“Catherine Hardy,” said Sam, appearing out of nowhere. “She works for the hospital but her wife is one of the top neurosurgeons in the country and a member of the board.”

“So she really can have us banned?”

“What did you do?” asked Sam, drawing out the words. “I only left you guys alone for an hour. What happened?”

Clint couldn’t help tensing at the hint of danger in Agent Wilson’s voice. 

“Can this wait until we’re back at the tower?” It wasn’t that Clint was trying to avoid answering Sam; he just wanted some time to wrap his head around everything that had happened. He wasn’t afraid to admit when he screwed up.

Sam gave him a considering look.

“I’ll give you a pass…this time.” Sam glanced around at the party that was breaking up. “Do you need a ride back?”

Clint shook his head.

“I’ll make my own way home.”

It would give him a chance to think.

O

Everything was silent when Clint entered the tower through the Avenger’s private entrance. He walked through the dim lighting, glancing up at the mute speakers. It was unusual for JARVIS not to greet them, but then Stark had been extremely angry when he left the party. Clint was probably lucky his key still worked.

He stepped into the elevator.

“Take me up, please, JARVIS.”

“Certainly, Mr. Barton,” replied JARVIS with a dangerous chill in his voice.

A shiver went down Clint’s spine.

“Actually, never mind,” he said. “I think I’ll take the stairs.”

O

“What are you doing?” asked Sam, sliding in next to Clint as they watched the rest of the Avengers arrive.

“Fixing things…I hope.” Clint glanced once at Sam before turning back to watch his teammates.

Sam nodded silently, giving Clint implicit permission to run the meeting, though Clint knew he would step in as he saw fit. He was still new to the team but he took his role as handler very seriously.

The Avengers trickled into the room. Some looked curious while others seemed uncomfortable. Iron Man was the last to arrive, standing far apart from the team propped against the wall. Everyone else was gathered around the table in their usual seats. All eyes turned to Clint as he crossed from the cooking space to take his place at the table.

“We need to talk about tonight,” said Clint, settling into his chair. He looked each of his teammates in the eyes. “Some people from the hospital overheard our argument and they weren’t very happy.”

Natasha muttered something under her breath and Bruce glanced around the group uncomfortably. He noticed Stark’s absence first.

“We’re not going to talk about kicking Tony off of the team, are we? Because I don’t want to be here if we are.”

“Relax, Switzerland,” said Clint. “This is nothing like that.”

“Then what is it?” asked Natasha, “Because Stark’s behavior tonight was reprehensible.”

“Really? Because every time I saw Stark tonight he was surrounded by kids and that’s more than most of us can say.”

“Which was fine,” said Rogers, “Until he went missing. A charity function is not an appropriate place to…”

Rogers’s vocabulary seemed to fail him but his expression clearly indicated his disgust.

“Troll for dates,” finished Natasha with a matching grimace.

“He wasn’t,” said Clint flatly. “Oh, he probably scored a date in the process, because he’s Tony fucking Stark, but he was missing because he went to visit a child that was too sick to attend the festivities.”

Sam spoke from the corner where he had been observing the meeting.

“Someone had better explain to me exactly what happened tonight,” he said, giving each of them a hard look.

They all shifted in their seats, looking at each other uncomfortably, like school children being called to task by their teacher.

“Now.”

“Captain Rogers was approached to do an interview with Tony, but no one could find him. Then Tony missed the team photo session,” said Bruce, keeping his summary matter of fact. He looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but t here, which wasn’t surprising since he normally went out of his way to avoid conflict—something about raised voices making him angry,

“I was angry,” admitted Rogers, quietly.

Bruce nodded.

“When Tony came back, they argued. Tempers flared.” Bruce shrugged uncomfortably.

“I said things I shouldn’t have,” confessed Clint, the ball of guilt heavy in his chest.

“And then you were banned,” said Sam, with the face of someone who couldn’t quite connect the dots.

“Right,” said Clint.

“Wait? What? For what reason have we been banished?” Everyone else spoke at once.

“I told you the hospital wasn’t happy with us arguing,” said Clint. “We’re being banned.”

“Hold on. Time out,” said Sam, holding up his hands to form a “T”. “I don’t understand. How did Stark visiting with a sick kid lead to an argument?”

“Because Stark would rather bait the Captain than give us an explanation,” said Natasha, crossing her arms.

“Bait?” asked Iron Man, turning his head to stare at her.

“You think Stark picked a fight with me on purpose?” asked Rogers, confused.

Clint cocked his head, watching them. He’d never noticed before how much Natasha influenced the Captain’s opinion of Stark. He wondered if that was the case with him, too.

“Why else wouldn’t he just tell us where he had been?”

“Why should he have to?” asked Clint, echoing Stark’s friend from the party.

“So now you’re defending him?” she said, giving him a look that suggested he should start sleeping with one eye open.

Clint shrugged. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”

Sam looked back and forth at them with an expression of growing annoyance. He turned to Bruce. “Explain, please. Concisely.”

“Tony didn’t tell anyone he’d been visiting a patient. He said he’d made a date.”

“And you all reacted like he shot your puppy,” completed Sam with a sigh. “Right.” He closed his eyes, looking two seconds away from banging his head against the wall. 

“You’re awfully quiet,” Clint said to Iron Man, who was still standing separate from the team. Clint examined the expressionless facemask, the distant body language. He took a wild guess. “You already knew where Stark was.”

His non-reaction was as good as a confession.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t think it would be right,” said Iron Man.

“Because you’re too close to Stark?”

Iron Man gave a clunky shrug.

“Something like that,” he said.

Clint shook his head, wondering if he was ever going to understand his teammates.

O

“All right, enough,” said Sam, his sharp voice cutting through the dissention. “You’re talking in circles.”

Clint sighed, frustrated that they couldn’t move past Stark’s mistakes.

“Now,” continued Sam, “would you like my opinion?”

When Clint opened him mouth, Sam held up his finger. “Ach! Don’t answer my rhetorical question. You’re getting my opinion.”

“We’d value your thoughts,” said Rogers diplomatically.

Clint glanced over at Bruce and rolled his eyes. They shared a brief grin.

“I’ve seen dozens of these arguments since I joined the team. You’re fighting over nothing just because you don’t like each other and that’s simply not acceptable. You don’t have to like each other; but you do have to work together.”

“Stark doesn’t make that easy,” complained Rogers.

“Maybe he doesn’t,” replied Sam, “God knows there are plenty of people at SHIELD who would cheerfully murder him in his sleep, but you were the one who provoked the last fight.”

Rogers slumped in his seat as he nodded.

“Why’d you get so angry?” Sam asked calmly, not sounding judgmental at all.

“I don’t even know now. I was frustrated and he wasn’t where he was supposed to be and he never takes anything seriously.”

“I have met men like Stark before,” said Thor. “You cannot listen to his words. When he speaks the most is when he says the least.”

“I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t know how to work with Stark. I can’t relate to him. We can’t have a civil conversation. He’s not an Avenger. I can’t work with someone who’s only a team member part time,” said Rogers in frustration.

It was like seeing Rogers for the first time. This wasn’t Captain America, just an ordinary human who was struggling.

“Why not?” asked Bruce curiously. He held up his hand to pause Roger’s answer. “You work with Iron Man who is sometimes not available due to his responsibilities to Stark Industries. You work with Barton and Romanoff who spend half their time off on missions for SHIELD. You even work with me and I’m usually a bigger menace than the menace du jour. What makes Tony any different?”

“I don’t know,” said Rogers, plaintively. “Stark’s just…”

“An immature asshole?” suggested Clint.

Rogers nodded.

“With a list of character defects bigger than the Library of Congress?”

Rogers nodded again, looking miserable as he did so.

There was a loud threatening creak of metal. Clint glanced over to see one of Iron Man’s hands clinched into a tight fist. He swallowed convulsively, but continued on to his point.

“You realize that pretty much describes me, right?” said Clint. “I’m an immature asshole and I have so many issues that my handlers have handlers.”

“That’s because I’m an active agent, too, you pillock,” said Sam, moving across the room to slap Clint on the back of the head.

“The point is,” said Clint, giving Sam a quick glare before turning back to Rogers, “that you manage to work with me so why not with Stark?”

“I don’t know!”

“You worked with his father,” said Iron Man, startling everyone. “The friendship between Howard Stark and Captain America is company lore.”

“Stark’s nothing like his father,” replied Rogers. Clint couldn’t read the expression on his face.

“Is that the problem?”

“I don’t think so,” said Rogers, looking thoughtful. “The opposite maybe. They’re so different that it’s unsettling when Stark does something familiar.”

Iron Man nodded silently.

“I just…he never takes anything seriously. I’m trying so hard and everything’s a game to him.”

“Please don’t take offense to this, Captain,” said Bruce, “but you don’t know Tony at all.”

“It sounds to me like he knows Stark perfectly,” objected Natasha with a snort.

“You’re not helping,” said Sam, giving her a warning glance.

“Tony Stark takes the Avengers Initiative very seriously; otherwise there would be no Iron Man and we wouldn’t be here right now,” said Iron Man.

Bruce nodded, continuing, “If I’ve learned one thing about Tony, it’s that he never misses an opportunity to make a joke, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. He’s just not one to wear his heart on his sleeve.”

“I think I figured that out tonight,” said Clint. “Remember how pushy those men from the board were?”

Rogers nodded, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

“That’s the world Stark’s from. He probably doesn’t know how to react to you either.”

“You mean, he doesn’t like me either,” said Rogers with a self-depreciating laugh.

Clint could see Iron Man shifting out of the corner of his eye.

Sam laughed.

“Trust me; I’ve seen what Stark does to people he doesn’t like. You’re practically besties in comparison.”

“Really?” asked Rogers, oddly hopeful.

“I’m going to speak with Stark and set up a couple of missions where the two of you are working together. I think you might come out the better for it. If not, we’ll sit down and re-evaluate, because this can’t continue.”

“I’m willing to try.” He looked so earnest that Clint almost couldn’t believe he was for real.

“Good,” said Sam, “But you’re not the only problem.”

“He’s right.” Clint turned to Natasha. “You hate Stark, Nata, but you never explain why.”

She looked at Iron Man. It was only Clint’s years of familiarity that allowed him to see the conflict in her expression.

“Fury ordered me never to speak of it,” she said with no inflection, but it was clear that she was wavering.

“Please,” said Iron Man. “Tell us.”

An expression of naked hate crossed her face, the barest emotion that Clint had ever seen from her. She swallowed hard.

“You left those people to die,” she told Iron Man. She might as well have been made from stone. “And it was all Stark’s fault.”

They stared at each other in silence.

“What are you two talking about?” asked Bruce, looking between them with concern.

“Monaco.” 

Even with Iron Man’s flat mechanical voice the word hung heavy in the air. Clint didn’t need to ask for elaboration. Everyone remembered the attack on the Grand Prix when fourteen people had been killed before the police and SHIELD managed to subdue Ivan Vanko.

“You ran away,” spat Natasha.

“I’m sorry,” said Iron Man, standing stiffly even for him. “There were extenuating circumstances that I’m not at liberty to divulge.”

“You should have stayed and fought Vanko!”

“I’m sorry,” repeated Iron Man, “but I couldn’t.”

“Because of Stark,” she insisted. “And then he hid away like a coward rather than face what he let happen. People died!”

“Nata,” interrupted Clint, drawing her attention to him. He approached her slowly, ready to back off at the first sign he was unwelcome, and slowly put his arms around him. She stood stiff in his embrace. He spoke lowly into her ear, “What if Iron Man’s right? What if there’s something you don’t know?”

“You weren’t there,” she said, too softly for anyone else to hear.

“No, but I know you used to hate Iron Man too and now you don’t.”

“No,” she admitted. “He was willing to die for us. People don’t…people don’t change that much; it had to have been Stark.”

“What if it wasn’t?” asked Clint. “What if there was nothing either of them could do?”

“Stark’s selfish,” she insisted. “You’ve seen it.”

“Stark’s a lot of things,” agreed Clint, “but I’ve never thought he was a coward.” He scrubbed at his head. “Look, I wasn’t there. I don’t know. I just don’t want you hating the guy for something he didn’t do.”

She nodded silently, looking thoughtful.

Clint looked up to find the whole room watching their private conversation with interest.

“Anything you want to share with the class?” asked Sam.

Natasha’s eyes flickered towards each of them.

“I’ll try to be more open minded,” she said flatly.

“Great,” said Clint, clapping his palms together twice. “Should we all hold hands and sing Kumbaya now?”

“No,” said Sam, not amused, “But thank you for bringing us to the next point we need to address in this little team building meeting of yours.”

“What?” asked Clint as all eyes were on him.

“You run your mouth too much,” said Sam, bluntly.

“Hey!” he protested looking to Natasha for support.

“You kind of do,” she said with a nod so he looked towards Bruce who shrugged apologetically.

“It’s not that you mean to say the wrong thing but often times you do. Isn’t that what led us here tonight?”

“No, that was the Captain being a meany pants.” No one laughed or even cracked a smile. Clint sighed because he knew they were right. “Okay, fine, but what do you want me to do?”

“Why don’t you attempt to curb your tongue and we’ll try not to be offended,” suggested Bruce, playing the peacemaker. “You should probably apologize to Tony, though.”

“Yeah,” said Clint, glumly. “I was already planning to.”

Iron Man made a soft sound that might have been surprise.

“You had a different suggestion?” asked Clint. He welcomed any advice, especially from the people who knew Stark best.

“It’s just that I-“Iron Man paused, trying to find the right words. “He doesn’t like apologies. Emotional allergies or something.”

“So what? I shouldn’t apologize.”

“You’re going to apologize,” ordered Sam. He glanced around the room. “All of you should.”

“Just don’t be surprised,” suggested Iron Man.

“At what?”

“Anything. Stark-“Iron Man paused again. “Tony. He’s unpredictable when he’s uncomfortable.”

“Stark’s always unpredictable,” muttered Rogers with a bit of exasperation.

Iron Man gave his weird shrug.

“It’s been said,” he agreed.

O

It was a few days before Clint saw Stark again. He’d apparently been angry enough with the team that he hopped on a flight to California after the party. Iron Man had flown out to join him; not much point in having a body guard only to leave him on the opposite side of the country. Neither were what Clint would call super-involved with the team but their absence left a gap in the household. It just furthered his resolve to fix this whole situation.

Still, he wasn’t quite prepared when he stepped into the elevator to head downstairs and was carried upwards instead. 

“I would advise you to step back,” said JARVIS. 

“Okay,” said Clint, slowly. This was the first time JARVIS had spoken to him unprompted since the party and Clint was relieved to find him sounding much friendlier, if he could describe a machine as friendly without sounding completely nuts. Clint backed up against the side of the elevator just as the door opened.

“J, buddy, what happened to warning me when I’m going to have company,” complained Stark, as he entered the elevator.

“Sorry,” said Clint, moving over further.

“Not your fault,” said Stark amiably. He glanced up at the security camera giving it a mock scowl. “Someone’s meddling.”

“Actually,” Clint said, taking a deep breath, “I’ve been hoping to talk to you.”

“Haven’t you said enough?”

“I deserved that,” he said, quietly.

“Not really.” Stark sighed. “Look, I know what you’re going to say. Can’t we just skip this conversation and say we had it?”

“So, I’m assuming you’ve heard about the meeting,” said Clint uncomfortably.

“You invited half of my friends to a secret meeting in my home,” said Stark, leaving the “what do you think?” unsaid.

“Then you know that I have to apologize.”

“You really don’t.”

“No, I do. I was rude and thoughtless. I shouldn’t have said those things to you.”

Stark waved his hand.

“Hi, Pot. I’m Kettle. Don’t worry about it.”

“That’s it?” asked Clint surprised. He’d expected Stark to draw this out whatever Iron Man had said about his aversion to apologies. 

“I’ve made a career out of saying inappropriate things,” said Stark with an amused smirk. “You think I couldn’t recognize a kindred spirit?”

“Then why the temper tantrum?”

Stark gave him a long hard look.

“I’m doing it again,” said Clint, closing his eyes with frustration.

“I wasn’t angry with you,” Stark replied grudgingly. He looked distant. “Though I do wonder why I’m always the target of your little barbs.”

“You make me uncomfortable,” mumbled Clint, looking away. It didn’t really take any soul searching to figure that one out. “I don’t like rich assholes, especially when I’m in their debt.”

“Oh, get over yourself,” said Stark rolling his eyes. “I’ve never held a single thing I’ve done for the Avengers over any of your heads. Well, maybe Fury, but the prickly bastard deserved it.”

“You would think it was that easy, Mr. I-have-it-all. You try going with nothing and see how you like watching other people flaunt their wealth.”

Stark gave him a flat look, distinctly not impressed.

“You’re not going to make me ashamed of my money. It’s mine and I’ve worked damn hard for it. If I want to fill my swimming pool with Dom Perignon, I will. If I want to hoard it all and not spend a dime, I’ll do that too. And if you don’t like it, that’s not my problem.”

Clint knew he was being stupid but Stark didn’t need to make fun of him for it. 

“Whatever,” he said, and then bit his tongue to stop himself from cursing at his lame response.

“Whatever,” mimicked Stark in a high falsetto. “What is this? Mean Girls?”

“Hey, don’t diss Mean Girls,” protested Clint. 

Stark laughed.

“You’re ridiculous,” he said, shaking his head. Stark leaned forward and pushed the button to close the elevator doors that had been standing open this whole time. “Where were you heading?”

“Just out,” said Clint, watching Stark select the ground floor. “Probably to get something to eat.”

“Oh, good, I’ll buy you lunch.”

Clint stared at him in disbelief. They go from arguing about money to Stark offering to buy his lunch. Clint shook his head.

“No, I’ll buy you lunch. Consider it part of my not-apology.”

“Even better!” said Stark, excitedly, rubbing his hands. “No one ever buys me lunch.”

“Never?” Clint found that hard to believe.

“Why would they? Like you pointed out, I’m rich.”

“You live in a strange world, Stark.”

“Says the man who runs around in skin-tight leather shooting people with arrows.”

“Touché.”

They stepped out into the lobby. Clint was used to being ignored so it was strange walking next to Stark, who automatically drew all eyes. He had to resist the urge to duck behind the decorative shrubbery.

“So how do you feel about shawarma?” asked Stark. “I saw this great little place that I’ve been meaning to try…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to go up yesterday but it needed some tweaking and I kept getting distracted by Doctor Who. If it’s any consolation, you’re getting a much superior version today.
> 
> Before anyone asks: Yes, I’ll probably write one of Tony and Steve’s missions, but I haven’t planned anything specific yet. You can offer suggestions if you'd like but I don't promise to follow them.
> 
> I’d like to thank everyone for all of their lovely comments. They’re often a highlight of my week. And just a reminder, I’ll be taking a short break from posting. Happy Holidays.


	18. Homecoming

18\. Homecoming

O

He stood on the street staring up at the skyscraper. It glistened in the sun; with its fresh coat of paint and shiny new windows, he could hardly spot the damage that had marred its walls just two short months ago. He felt strange standing here again. His knapsack hung heavier on his shoulder as though he carried more with him than just his meager possessions.

Bruce Banner sighed. He didn’t have to go inside the building. He could always turn away or go to SHIELD. No one was expecting him yet. He hadn’t even realized he was returning to New York until he stepped up to the airline counter. He just wanted his return to be voluntary; he didn’t want to wait until SHIELD came looking.

He clutched at his bag, indecision eating at his stomach, as people milled about him. 

“Sir?”

Bruce glanced around him before realizing that the question was for him. The woman standing in front of him was bland in generic business attire: hair in a bun, black jacket and a pencil skirt with a white blouse. She could have been anyone from anywhere, but Bruce knew she had stepped out of the building in front of him.

“Yes,” answered Bruce cautiously.

“I’ve been instructed to invite you inside,” she said, sounding bored and almost mechanized.

Trust Stark to have robotic biological employees and human mechanical friends. 

“Only invite?” he asked, with a polite smile, homing in on the exactness of her speech.

“Yes, sir,” she replied, perfunctorily. “My instructions were quite clear. I was only to invite you with no effort to persuade or detain you should you decline.” Then she broke persona and gave him a crooked grin, leaning forward to confide, “But Mr. Stark spoke to me personally so I can assure you that he does want you to come in.”

Bruce gave one last look around him at the busy city in which he could easily disappear. 

“Lead the way,” he told the woman, waving his hand towards the entrance to Stark Tower. She ushered him into the building, sliding effortlessly into the role of tour guide.

“Welcome to Stark Tower,” she said. “The only building in Manhattan to run completely on clean energy. We maintain the East Coast headquarters for Stark Industries, a research and design facility, the Stark Museum, and twenty floors of residential housing.”

Bruce stared around the tastefully opulent reception area with bemusement. His guide trotted across the open space, her heels clicking on the glossy marble floor.

“If you’ll place your hand here,” she instructed, indicating a plate on the wall beside the row of elevators.

Bruce placed his hand against the cool glass, watching as it scanned his palm.

“You’re now cleared to all public elevators in Stark Towers,” she informed him. They stepped into the elevator where she pushed a solitary button at the top of the row. She stepped back out into the hallway. “This is where I leave you, sir. Mr. Stark or one of his staff will greet you at the top. It was pleasant meeting you.”

The door shut, leaving him alone.

O

It wasn’t Stark standing in front of the elevator when it opened but Bruce immediately recognized the red head as Stark’s assistant, Pepper Potts. She was smiling so he relaxed but he couldn’t help peering around anxiously hoping that Stark was somewhere nearby.

“Doctor Banner,” she said, warmly as she led him into the apartment. “Thank you for coming.”

“Thank you for having me,” he said, a bit uncomfortably. “And, um, sorry for not calling ahead?”

“Tony’s not much for formality,” she admitted. “He’s just pleased that you’ve accepted his invitation. Will you want guest bedroom or one of the suites?”

“I don’t know,” he said, hesitantly, scrubbing at the back of his head with one hand even though he knew it would make his hair stick out.

He felt very out of place. Stark’s home simply screamed Money. Now that it wasn’t blanketed in a layer of dust and destruction he had a hard time picturing himself here.

“Perhaps if I show you your options?” she suggested, kindly ignoring the fact that he was obviously out of his depth.

“Look, I think this was a bad idea,” he admitted, turning back towards the elevators.

“A bit too fancy for your tastes?” she said, sympathetically.

“I’ve never been anywhere where the elevator opened up into another elevator,” he said, instead of blurting out that he didn’t belong here.

She laughed.

“When Tony designed the building, he didn’t want to be the lonely king atop his empire, but opening up the tower’s living space to so many people comes with certain security issues. The double elevator is one of the ways he keeps unwanted people out of his personal domain.”

“Where is Mr. Stark anyway?”

With everyone from his staff to the electronic butler reassuring him that Stark wanted him here, he had expected to see the man or at least Iron Man. He didn’t know quite what to think about the line of near strangers greeting him.

“I know he’s told you to call him Tony,” she said, teasingly. “And I’m Pepper, by the way.”

“Tony,” he corrected, solemnly, with a quick quirk of his lips.

“He’s occupied in one of his labs. Very busy. Hush Hush. I’ll take you down to see him after we get you settled.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow at her amused tone.

“And Iron Man? He does live here as well?”

“Iron Man is taking a much needed rest,” replied the room, or rather the computer utilizing the room’s surround sound. JARVIS, Bruce reminded himself; the computer is named JARVIS.

Then Bruce was following Pepper deeper into the massive apartment despite his every intention of leaving, but he was quickly learning that Pepper Potts was like an unmovable force of nature in her own rights. She led him down to a second floor where the change in décor was immediately apparent. Everything here was simpler, almost unfurnished, looking nothing like the casual decadence of the other space. Bruce found himself beginning to relax.

“There’s an entire second living space here in addition to the individual suites,” she said, guiding him past the doors for what she said were a living room and kitchen.

“It’s very different,” he replied.

“You’ll be staying down here.” She opened a door and waved at him to enter. “What do you think?”

“I- “ He looked around at the apartment within an apartment at a loss for words. How could he accept this?

“Privacy mode, please, JARVIS. There, now Tony won’t be able to spy on us.” Pepper smiled at him like they were sharing a secret and he found himself smiling hesitantly back, somehow not at all surprised that Stark had them under surveillance. “We have about five minutes before he starts protesting so if you have any questions ask them now.”

“Why this?” he asked immediately, waving his hand to encompass everything. 

“You are never to repeat this to him,” she said, giving him a serious look. She glanced up at the ceiling. “Either of you.”

“You have my word,” murmured JARVIS, startling Bruce into nodding as well.

“Tony likes you, Doctor; he doesn’t like a lot of people. And he’s painfully aware that people find his enthusiasm overwhelming. So he’s hiding in his lab hoping that he doesn’t frighten you away.” 

“Me? Tony Stark is hiding from me?” Bruce found the idea baffling, especially regarding a man who had laughingly provoked the Hulk. 

“He wants you to like it here,” she said, giving him a sad smile that spoke volumes. Her phone began to ring; she glanced at it with a rueful shrug, but didn’t answer. “Right on time.”

“I don’t know what to say,” admitted Bruce, feeling overwhelmed.

“There’s nothing to say. I just wanted you to be aware.”

“Do you do this a lot? Guard him from people?”

Pepper shook her head.

“Tony’s an adult. He can make his own decisions. You’re just a special case.”

“Because I’m an Avenger?” he asked, meaning because he was the Hulk.

“Because you’re a stranger but he talks about you like you’re a trusted confidant.”

“Oh.” Now Bruce felt humbled. 

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” said JARVIS, “But, Mr. Stark is demanding that I deliver a message. He says, and I quote: ‘You are not allowed to use privacy mode as a means to gossip about your boss, no matter how devilishly handsome and gossip-worthy said boss might be.’ Should you continue he has threatened to revoke your privacy mode privileges.”

Pepper laughed a delicate tinkling sound like jingle bells. Bruce found himself grinning again.

“All right, JARVIS,” she said. “Privacy mode off then.” She looked directly at the cameras, and said sarcastically, “Is that better, Oh Devilishly Handsome Bossman?”

Her phone dinged. She opened it with an amused grin. Smirking, she held it up for Bruce to see.

-Much. - Read the text message.

Bruce shook his head in amusement, feeling a bit like he’d fallen down a rabbit hole.

“I’ll remember what you said,” he promised Pepper.

“That’s all I ask.” She gave him a sunny smile. “And welcome to the mad house.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made it: Decemberish. My hiatus did not go as productively as planned so I’m still a bit behind. I don’t know if I’ll be able to post as frequently as I did before the holidays but I should be able to manage regular updates.


	19. Small Talk

19\. Small Talk

O

Tony was fiddling. He unscrewed here and bolted there; mixed and matched, buffed and tweaked- a flurry of apparent productivity that both he and JARVIS knew would amount to nothing. It was all an illusion, merely a way for Tony to keep his hands busy while his mind was otherwise occupied.

“So I’m feeding the Avengers tonight,” he said, out of the blue.

“I’m aware,” replied JARVIS, dryly. 

“You are?”

“Not fifteen minutes ago, you gave me a list of food orders thirty-seven lines long and then asked me if I thought that would be enough food for the entire team. It’s hardly straining my logic circuits to deduce that you intend to feed them.”

Tony set down his tools and turned around with a look of concentration on his face. He tapped at his chin with one hand.

“Oh, right,” he said, pointing into the air. “We did have that conversation.”

He turned back to his work only to immediately spin back around in his chair.

“See, here’s the thing.” He drummed his fingers on the arms of the chair. “I’m kind of the host of this dinner, welcome committee, “hey you live with me now so let’s eat” thing, which means I have to be there. You know, as me.”

“Iron Man can’t attend,” said JARVIS, connecting the dots. 

“No, I can’t be Iron Man,” replied Tony, putting the emphasis on the pronoun.

“I don’t eat.”

“Neither does Iron Man. No mandible.” Tony made a sad little chomping motion with his hand.

JARVIS was silent.

“Might I have a moment to think about it, sir?”

“Of course,” said Tony, with a confused frown. “I just thought you’d be a little more enthused. Didn’t you want to socialize with your teammates more?”

“I did,” replied JARVIS slowly. “But I’m finding the task simpler in the theoretical than in the practical.”

“Tell me more,” said Tony, folding his hands to rest his chin. “Papa’s listening.”

JARVIS’s speakers let out a strange noise that was halfway between laughter and choking but too brief to be either. Tony knew if JARVIS had a face and eyes, he would be rolling them right now.

When JARVIS didn’t answer, Tony prompted, “You’ve been alone with the team. Didn’t you talk to any of them?”

“I find myself reluctant to broach the silence before the meetings.”

“You guys really sit around and stare at each other in silence? No wonder everyone perks up when I arrive.”

“I believe that would be relief, sir, as you are generally late and we are waiting on you to start.”

“Plfft! Nonsense!” said Tony, waving his hand to brush off the idea, though he had noticed that briefings were much shorter when he attended them as Iron Man. “So you really don’t talk to any of them?”

“Generally, no.” JARVIS was quiet for a moment before he added, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, buddy. I’m not disappointed; I’m just surprised. I thought this was what you wanted.”

“I do. I just…don’t know how. I never know what to say,” he confessed. “I prefer it when they speak to me first, or when Barton challenges me to Noughts and Crosses, even if the game is rather simplistic.”

“Don’t knock Tic-tac-toe!” protested Tony. “Barton and I- err, Iron man- played to forty-two draws in a row last week and had to resort to Paper, Rock, Scissors to decide the game.”

“Would you mind a different game? Perhaps Dots and Boxes?”

“Ooh, that’s a good one. I haven’t played that in years, not since what’s his name was kicked off the board.” Tony glanced at his watch. “So…dinner…yes, no, maybe?”

“I don’t know,” said JARVIS, still sounding reluctant.

Tony looked up, his face uncharacteristically serious.

“Look, I get that you’re shy or whatever, because I’ve kept you kind of sheltered, but this is the point where you need to either put up or shut up. You’re never going to make friends if you don’t try.”

“Very well, sir,” replied JARVIS sounding subdued. “I’ll attend dinner as Iron Man.”

O

Bruce stepped into the dining room and had to bite his cheek to keep from laughing. The massive mound of food burying the table was very very Tony Stark.

“So what do you think?” asked Tony, a tad anxiously. He was vibrating in place as he watched Bruce’s reaction.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen lasagna and beef chow mein served in the same meal,” replied Bruce carefully, trying to sound diplomatic.

“There’s Chicken Tikka Masala as well,” said Tony, pointing further down the table. “I polled my employees for their favorite take-out and ordered the whole assortment.”

He spoke as though this were a logical approach to planning dinner for seven people.

“I see,” said Bruce, and having lived in the tower long enough to get to know Tony, he really did see.

“Oh,” said Tony. His enthusiasm fell into a disappointed slump. “Too much?”

“Just a bit,” admitted Bruce, giving Tony’s arm a pat. “Generally the menu is slightly more cohesive. Perhaps you could try ordering food from the same region next time.”

“Okay,” nodded Tony, glancing at his watch. “JARVIS, pick the nearest restaurant and order their whole menu. Tell them we need everything in twenty minutes.”

“Wait,” cried Bruce, raising his hands. “You can’t seriously be thinking about ordering a whole new meal?”

“This one doesn’t work,” he said, pointing at the table.

“You’d just throw it all away?” Bruce couldn’t wrap his head around that kind of waste.

“Nah, I’ll send it down to the break room in the labs. There’s always someone around with a bottomless stomach.”

Bruce shook his head in wonder.

“You don’t need to do that, Tony,” he said gently. “The team will enjoy the meal you’ve already provided. In fact, I think the Captain and Thor might like having such a variety to sample.”

“Are you sure?”

Tony chewed on his lip as he eyed the table suspiciously.

“Please.”

“Well, okay then.” Tony shrugged and then wandered out of the room muttering something about “Pepper” and “next time”.

O

Steve glanced at the clock for the fifth time. The hand was inching closer and closer to the hour but Banner and he were still the only people in the dining room.

“Relax,” said Banner, grinning at him. “They’ll be here soon.”

“But Mr. Stark isn’t here,” protested Steve. “Are you sure he hasn’t cancelled?”

“It’s not time to eat yet,” he said. 

Steve shrugged uncomfortably, aware that he had expectations of the host that might be unrealistic in this time period. It was so hard to figure out how things were done now.

“I don’t think early is in Tony’s vocabulary,” remarked Banner, when they heard a noise in the hallway.

“Hey,” said Barton, sticking his head hesitantly through the doorway. He perked up and smiled when he saw the other two standing around the table. He waltzed into the room with Romanoff close behind him, only to stop at his first glimpse of the food. “Oh, man, wow.”

Steve knew exactly how Barton felt. He looked at the overwhelming selection of food again.

“Do you think he invited extra guests?”

“No,” reassured Banner. “That’s just Tony. He doesn’t know the meaning of the word excess.”

Huh, thought Steve. That seemed to be a theme with Stark tonight.

Then the man in question arrived like a king returning to court.

“Welcome! Welcome!” proclaimed Stark, throwing his arms wide to envelope the room. “I hope everyone is settling in. Oops, and we’re missing one. JARVIS, where is Thor?”

Steve glanced around the room, startled to see Iron Man standing silently to the side as he hadn’t noticed him arriving.

“He is leaving his quarters now,” said Stark’s computer from the overhead speakers.

Steve shifted a bit uncomfortably wondering if Stark had them watched at all times, but after a quick glance at the team’s SHIELD agents, he relaxed. They didn’t seem bothered so maybe this kind of thing was normal now. 

There was a loud booming knock at the door.

“I request entry,” stated Thor at full volume.

Iron Man hastened to open the door. 

“You have standing permission to enter any of the common spaces,” reminded Stark. “You live here now.”

“I thank you,” replied Thor, bowing his head in greeting as he entered the room.

Oh, wow. Steve was stunned as he caught the first glimpse of Thor’s attire. He had exchanged his normal clothes for an exquisite suit and tie ensemble that fit him too perfectly to be anything other than custom designed. Where on earth had he gotten it on such short notice? And with what money? Steve had never shopped in the kind of places that might sell clothing like that but he knew it must cost more than Steve’s monthly salary.

“You look lovely, Thor,” murmured Romanoff appreciatively. “The blue brings out your eyes.”

Barton and Romanoff both twisted their heads in a mirrored motion as they admired Thor’s assets.

“Truly, Lady Natasha?” he asked uncertainly, touching his long blonde hair that had been tied loosely at his nape. “The Voice in the Heavens was most insistent.”

Steve was confused until Stark spoke.

“JARVIS does have an eye for detail,” remarked Stark. “Good job, buddy.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Stark’s computer.

Steve glanced around the room noting the disparity of their dress. Romanoff and Barton were dressed very similarly to their SHEILD uniforms but in regular clothes while Banner had chosen to wear a simple sweater and slacks, but Stark’s jacket and dress shirt were just as nice as Thor’s suit. Then there was Iron Man who stood out from all of them in his shiny armor.

Stark clapped loudly, drawing their attention.

“We should eat before the food gets cold,” he said, waving at the table. “I didn’t know what you would like so I ordered a bit of everything.”

“Literally,” muttered Banner.

Steve collected a plate and looked over the table at the offerings, uncertain whether he wanted to try something new first or go for something more familiar. Someone –most likely one of Stark’s staff- had helpfully placed placards beside each dish with its name, country of origin, and a brief description identifying the tastes as sweet, savory, or spicy. Steve quickly filled his plate much to his disappointment as there were other dishes he wanted to try.

One of the others let out a brief laugh that was quickly converted into a cough. Steve looked up to see Banner smirking at Stark while they held a silent exchange. Next to them, Thor was regarding his own overflowing plate with a glum expression.

“Pardon me,” announced Iron Man as he disappeared into the adjacent kitchen. He returned holding two large porcelain serving platters that matched one of the sets on the table which he offered to Steve and Thor.

“Thanks,” murmured Steve, fighting down a blush of embarrassment. He transferred his food to the platter and gave his empty plate back to Iron Man then made quick work of filling the remaining space.

Steve shared a brief smile with his teammates as he settled down at the table. The food was delicious and he felt no guilt eating his fill when there was clearly plenty to share. A companionable silence fell over the group broken only by sighs of contentment and the occasional chink of cutlery colliding with the china.

They had managed to put a massive dent into the food with everyone well into their second helping when loud music interrupted the quiet discourse. Stark removed one of his tablet phone things from the bag on the back of his chair.

“Pepper!” barked Stark into the machine with an annoyed tone. “You know that I’m-“ He cut off, a serious expression coming over his face. He listened quietly with lines forming on his face as he frowned deeper with each passing second. “Give me a moment.”

He looked up at the group, giving them a short, insincere smile. He placed his silverware on the table.

“Sorry, guys,” he said, pushing himself backwards. “I’m going to need to go take this call. Feel free to have fun without me.”

“I hope everything’s okay,” said Steve as the entire table watched Stark leave.

“Probably something with Stark Industries,” remarked Banner.

The group collectively held their breath, expecting some kind of an interjection on the subject, but Iron Man stayed silent. With an uncertain glance at each other, the group hesitantly returned to their meal.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” said Stark’s computer a few minutes later, breaking the quiet, “but Mr. Stark has asked me to convey his apologies. He will be unable to return due to an incident at work.”

“Thank you, JARVIS,” answered Banner, much to Steve’s relief as he didn’t know how to address the machine. “Tell Tony that we will miss his presence.”

“Shouldn’t Iron Man be leaving to, you know, bodyguard?” asked Barton curiously.

Iron Man turned his head to stare at Barton silently.

“Mr. Stark is quite safe in his own office,” replied Stark’s computer, startling Steve by sounding a bit miffed at the query. “He is currently teleconferencing with one of our facilities in Japan.”

“The arc reactor?” asked Banner, sounding like he knew what was happening.

“A mere complication,” replied the computer, sounding unconcerned.

“I don’t understand,” said Barton, plaintively.

“Stark’s building another building like this one,” answered Romanoff, impatiently. “In Japan, apparently.”

“Modifying the existing building, actually,” responded Iron Man. “But, yes, our factory in Japan will be running off clean energy by the spring if all goes according to plan.”

Barton shook his head. “That’s kind of genius,” he said, appreciatively.

“Wasn’t the government trying to claim Stark’s energy for the United States?” asked Steve, uncertain that he fully understood the articles he had read.

“Which is why you really have to admire Stark’s move,” answered Barton with a smirk. “By choosing to take the technology out of the country, he’s making a statement that the arc reactor belongs to Stark Industries, but he picked Japan, a country that the government can’t object to without offending trusted allies.”

“Midgardian politics seem very complicated,” remarked Thor. “There are none in the realms who would question my father as your people seem to question Stark.”

“Your father is also King,” replied Romanoff.

“Is Stark not a leader of your people?” Thor sounded confused and he was frowning at each of them.

Romanoff and Barton laughed.

“Not as such,” replied Banner, with a sigh.

“Please explain,” demanded Thor.

“Stark’s just a man,” began Steve uncomfortably. “He’s a man with a lot of money, but he doesn’t have any power.”

“That would depend on your definition of power, Captain,” said Iron Man. He looked at Thor. “In a capitalist world, might is determined by financial resources and technology, and Mr. Stark has a great deal of both; but our governments are nominally run by populist vote and Mr. Stark remains a divisive figure in public opinion.”

“So Stark is both powerful and powerless,” stated Thor.

“Exactly.”

“Your world is very complex.”

Steve could agree with that.

“We’re supposed to be having fun,” reminded Banner. “I’ve been living here for a while but how does everyone else like your new quarters?”

“It’s not what I expected,” replied Steve. “Or maybe it is. Every time the house speaks or the doors open for me, I feel like I’ve stepped into a dime novel.”

“Well, let us know if you start hearing lions,” said Banner with a laugh.

Steve sighed, another reference gone over his head, although maybe this was an obscure one because Barton and Romanoff also looked confused.

“I like the doors,” said Barton.

“You would,” replied Romanoff.

“I don’t think I saw yours, Iron Man.”

“I have one,” answered Iron Man. “My quarters are simply well secured.”

“What was your poster?” asked Steve curiously. He’d had a laugh at the classic image of Rip Van Winkle on his door.

“Iron Giant.”

“Ooh, good one,” laughed Barton as Steve sighed.

“I have the film in my database,” said Stark’s computer, speaking quietly from a speaker to Steve’s right. “You may watch it on any of the tower’s television or computer screens simply by requesting it.”

“If I’m around, I’ll watch it with you,” offered Iron Man, though Steve didn’t know how he had managed to hear from so far away.

“Thanks,” he whispered to both of them, giving Iron Man a smile.


	20. Expo

20\. Expo

“Can you explain this to me again?” asked Pepper, as she flipped through the third update of the plans for Stark Expo. 

She couldn’t even pretend to understand why this venture was so important to Tony; it seemed like a waste of time to put so much effort into what was essentially a massive PR stunt. Yet Tony acted like he was building the second Ark to save them all. She sighed, knowing she should have vetoed the idea the very day Tony had come home from SHIELD bouncing off the walls with enthusiasm, but she very rarely said no when Tony truly wanted something.

“Tony?” 

He was staring at the table, his eyes vacant, no longer seeing the papers before him. He looked exhausted with dark rings under his eyes and crow’s feet that grew deeper each time she saw him. Whatever SHIELD had him doing - and she knew just enough to know that she didn’t want to know more – it wasn’t treating him well.

“Huh? What?” He shook his head to clear it, turning to meet her gaze with bleary, blood-shot eyes.

“Okay, that’s it,” she said, folding her hands in front of her. She leaned forward and earnestly asked, “What’s wrong? What’s really going on, Tony?”

He blinked and narrowed his eyes at her. She almost thought he was going to tell her the truth but then—

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, shaking his head and averting his eyes away from her. “Everything’s great. Wonderful, even.”

“Fine,” she said sadly. Pepper let the topic drop, knowing nothing she said at this point would matter, and turned her attention back on the plans spread out in front of them. “Then explain the Expo to me one more time.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, cocking his head at her like she was being obtuse.

“I mean Stark Industries is floundering. The stocks haven’t been this low since The Press Conference.”

Tony opened his mouth with a mischievous glint in his eyes. 

“The first one!” she snapped, not wanting to hear him joke about which press conference.

He closed his mouth and sat up straighter, looking suitably chastised. Miracle of miracles, he appeared to be giving her his full attention. She sighed, brushing her hair back away from her face.

“You promised me, when I took over Stane’s position in the company, that I would not be doing this by myself. What happened to taking responsibility for your legacy? What happened to “the two of us against the world, Pepper”? You spend all of your time with SHIELD and working on this stupid Expo! Why? I get SHIELD – Iron Man’s important. But this?” She waved her hands over the Expo plans. “What’s the point?”

Tony stared at her for a long, silent moment. Pepper stared back, trying to understand. She hadn’t missed the brief expression of hurt that had been swiftly hidden under his mask of indifference. 

“This is my legacy,” he said with uncharacteristic seriousness, reaching out with one hand to tap the papers on the table. “The public has no idea what Stark Industries does. Ask anyone on the streets and they’ll tell you it’s me and weapons. Well, I’m not the draw I used to be and we don’t make weapons.”

“Stark Expo is going to change everything. People are going to see that Stark Industries is so much greater than they ever imagined. Our technology is changing the world.” Tony spoke with a passion that Pepper had never seen from him. “They just have to see it and then it won’t matter that we don’t build weapons or if I’m around to run the company.”

“But why an expo? We could be releasing some of this technology now instead of waiting.”

Tony smiled sadly.

“I’m fulfilling my father’s dream,” he said, looking over the plans with a slightly lost look on his face. “I think that’s fitting. Don’t you?”

“Sure, Tony,” she replied with rote agreement.

There was something she was missing; some secret that was driving all of this. She couldn’t believe that Tony just all of a sudden cared about completing his father’s work when he had spent most of his life running away from any mention of the man. Pepper stared at Tony’s tired, drawn face. She wished that he would let her in, instead of keeping everything to himself; because whatever it was that was driving these plans, it was eating Tony alive.

O

They had stood in lines that wrapped the block for hours. Now they stood pressed shoulder to shoulder filling the main exhibit hall to the brim. The atmosphere was buzzing with anticipation that rivaled any major sporting event. Silence fell as they heard the first sounds coming from the stage.

First it sounded like drums, but as it grew louder the rhythmic noise took on a metallic tone. Eventually, the sound was distinguishable as marching, but not normal boot steps; these sounded futuristic like Stormtroopers or a squad of Cybermen.

Thump. Thump! Thump. Thump!

The crowd watched with wide eyes as an entire platoon of Iron Man suits marched onto the stage. The suits divided into two groups forming an open divide down the center of the stage. They stopped in unison and as one turned their heads towards the sky.

The crowd looked up to see the roof of the building silently retracting. They heard the loud base of a rocket being launched. Then one firework after another was launched in a circling perimeter from the roof of the building, until the entire night’s sky was lit in brilliant sparkling colors. Up within the exploding displays, there was one light that refused to obey the laws of physics. It weaved up, down, and around through the fireworks before falling towards the ground. The crowd gasped as it began to fall towards them.

Just as the people were on the verge of panic, the projectile slowed and made a swerving turn. Then Iron Man was circling over their heads. The crowd cheered as the flicker of camera flashes rivaled the fireworks display over head. As the accompanying music hit an apex, Iron Man landed on the stage on bended knee. For a brief second, he was out of sight, but then he stood tall and proud in a classic superhero pose. 

The music faded to silence. As Iron Man began to walk forward, the only sound was his footsteps and the rustle of several thousand watching people. The armor began to crack and peel away but Iron Man never broke stride. Slowly the man beneath the suit was revealed until only the face remained covered. Iron Man paused just before he reached the podium and the face plate split away.

Tony Stark stepped up to the podium, beaming at his stunned public.

A riot of shocked whispers and gasps raced through the crowd. Tony held up both hands to quiet them. 

“When I came back from my imprisonment in Afghanistan, a lot of people wrote me off. They said I would never be anything again. When I shut down Stark Industries weapons division, people thought I was nuts. They said that the company wouldn’t last a month.”

Tony spread his arms.

“I’m still here. Stark Industries is still standing. The world is in the midst of the longest period of uninterrupted peace in decades. I’m not saying that’s all down to me or even Iron Man, but you can’t deny that we’ve revolutionized world peace.”

He waited for the applause to die.

“Now we have to look to the future and you can’t do that without remembering the past. My father was a firm believer in the Stark Expo. He believed that when you brought the best and the brightest minds in the world together and let them share their ideas; there was no limit to what they might create. Tomorrow morning the exhibit halls of Stark Expo will open for the first time since 1974. For the next year, we will display the collective works from some of the most renowned scientists and corporations the world has to offer and the research facilities at Stark Industries will be leading the way. Stark Industries is building today the technology of tomorrow.”

“Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, the future is now. Just remember that seeing is believing…”

Tony Stark paused, looking out into the crowd. He grinned and slowly began to fade away, first becoming transparent, and then disappearing completely leaving an empty podium. The audience gasped.

“But don’t believe everything you see,” finished Tony Stark’s voice above and behind the audience.

They turned around to see the spotlight on Tony Stark sitting in one of the sky boxes smirking down at them. 

“First generation Stark Holographics. Coming soon to a theatre near you,” he said, waving at the stage.

The Iron Man suits came to attention. The armor peeled away revealing attractive men and women dressed as college cheerleaders. Music began to blare as the cheerleaders moved into a dance and gymnastics routine. The audience watched mesmerized not sure that what they were watching was real until the last note died away and the posing squad burst into gold shimmers.

“Welcome to Stark Expo.”

The crowd went nuts.

O

“Simply amazing,” said Pepper, as they tried to avoid the crush of the crowds leaving the grounds. “You did a wonderful job organizing everything, Tony.”

“I thoroughly enjoyed creating the composites for the dancers,” said Tony with a brief smirk.

“I’m sure you did,” said Pepper looking unimpressed.

“I’ll have you know that there was a dancer created from the workers of each Stark instillation around the world. I wanted to properly represent our diversity.”

“By making them appear like they all stepped out of a swimsuit model shoot?”

“Merely a pleasant side effect,” he replied promptly with a quick grin.

“You’re incorrigible,” said Pepper, unable to keep from smiling.

It was good to see Tony again. He’d been hiding away with SHIELD and the preparations for the Expo so she’d barely managed to speak with him on the phone much less in person.

“The investors are having an after-party,” she said, feeling a bit surreal that she had to ask Tony Stark of all people. “You should come.”

She wasn’t surprised when he shook his head. She hadn’t been the only person to notice that he’d addressed thousands of people tonight without interacting one-on-one with anyone other than her.

“Not tonight,” he said. “I’m exhausted.”

She pursed her lips with exasperation, but didn’t argue. He still looked tired and ill, not to mention frailer than she was used to seeing, but he seemed good: happy, lighter. She was glad that she had let him have the Expo. She still didn’t think it would be the miracle cure he thought it would be but it had already done him a world of good. She would give him a little bit longer before she coaxed him back into the public eye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a set up for Iron Man 2 hinting at some of the changes that took place. I’ll be coming back to this eventually but right now my inspiration’s jumping all over the place – not sure what that’s going to do to the narrative. You’ll have to let me know if I need to start adding more notes on the setting and timeline.


	21. Distraction

21\. Distraction

Tony awoke with lethargy, exhausted before he had even completed his transition from sleep. He lay in bed, trying to find the energy to open his eyes, but all he could think about were the daunting list of tasks awaiting him in the day ahead. There was so much to do. There was always so much to do. Sometimes it seemed like life was nothing but an unending line of people who wanted to take, take, take. 

He never wanted to run a Fortune 500 company. Stark Industries had been his father’s thing and Obie’s—look where it got them. Tony just wanted to build things. He could have been perfectly happy living in Arizona working as a mechanic. Maybe he should just run away and…

Shit.

Tony halted his thoughts and ran through mental check list.

“JARVIS,” he croaked, through a suddenly dry throat. “It’s going to be a bad day.”

He didn’t have time for this. He swallowed roughly, feeling parched, wishing for something to wet his throat, preferably alcoholic. There was a bottle of rum sitting on the edge of his dresser, left out from something, Tony couldn’t remember what. Suddenly, it was all he could see. 

“Really bad day,” amended Tony, shivering.

He sat up in bed, pulling the covers up over him like a cloak, until only his face was visible amongst the nest of bedding. He’d be just fine as long as he stayed right here. He just needed to calm down.

He got like this sometimes. Everything was just too much and he wanted to run away. Unfortunately, he’d developed a bad habit of leaning on alcohol in an effort to distract himself out of doing something stupid, not that the things he did while drunk were much better. Now he didn’t know which urge was the bigger monster. He couldn’t afford to let either one win. It wasn’t just him who would suffer if he screwed up this time. He had to think about the Avengers and Pepper, all of his employees who were depending on him.

No, Tony couldn’t have anything to drink, because on a day like this there was no way he would stop at one. 

It just felt so hopeless. He didn’t have the energy to fight all day long. Tony closed his eyes, feeling like crying, but he pushed it down. He was shaking as he clutched at his sheets.

“Pepper is cancelling all of your appointments,” announced JARVIS, speaking softly. 

“Tell her…Tell her…” He didn’t know what to tell her.

Tony rocked on his bed.

“Sir,” interrupted JARVIS, hesitantly, “forgive me if I’m overstepping, but Iron Man doesn’t drink.”

Tony bowed his head. He shouldn’t. He should be stronger than this.

No, he was going to fail. That Tony Stark, always such a disaster. Look what he did now.

“Please,” he whispered.

The door to his bedroom opened and Tony shifted away, hiding from the open door. He could hear footsteps approaching the bed. Strong arms swept him up like a small child allowing the blankets to fall away. He was held close, safe. Tony closed his eyes, letting his feverish forehead rest against the cool metal.

“JARVIS.”

“I have you, sir.”

The armor began to shift and Tony went from encased in Iron Man’s arms to encased in Iron Man. The warm, safe, protected feeling remained the same. Tony went boneless with relief, but Iron Man remained standing strong.

O

“I don’t normally see you this time of day,” said Steve with some surprise as he looked up from his breakfast.

Iron Man settled gingerly onto the bench, still not completely adjusted to sitting in the armor even after all of this time.

“I take this time to be myself so I can accompany the team and Mr. Stark the rest of the day,” he admitted, carefully skirting the truth.

Steve nodded around a spoonful of oatmeal, but his next question was obvious.

“Mr. Stark is taking a mental health day,” Iron Man answered without waiting to be asked. “He won’t be needing my services today.”

Steve mouthed the words “mental health day” as though sounding them out in his head. He looked confused. 

“He’s playing hooky,” said Iron Man.

Steve said nothing but he frowned disapprovingly.

Tony sighed within the suit.

 _“He doesn’t understand,”_ whispered JARVIS’s voice into the internal speakers. _“Try again,”_ he ordered.

Ever since JARVIS decided that the animosity between Steve and Tony stemmed from their “mutual inability to properly interpret each other’s social cues,” he had tasked himself with preventing further misunderstandings. Since JARVIS only had private access to Tony’s hearing, his self-appointed task was proving most annoying. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, depending on the perspective; JARVIS’s efforts appeared to be having some success; Tony and Steve hadn’t had a fight in weeks.

“Mr. Stark isn’t feeling well today,” explained Iron Man. “He’s not actually sick, but he’s taking the day off in the hopes that tomorrow will be better.”

“Oh.”

It was like watching a light bulb turn on. Steve’s entire posture relaxed slightly and his expression softened.

“Tell Mr. Stark that I hope he feels better,” said Steve with a sympathetic smile.

“I will,” promised Iron Man, as Tony marveled privately at the change in attitude.

Steve pushed away his empty plate, giving a satisfied grunt.

“I should get ready to go,” he said with a sigh.

“What do you do all day?” asked Iron Man, curiously, though it was difficult to tell through the flat affect. “I’ve never really asked.”

“Different things,” replied Steve with a shrug. “Today I’m heading over to SHIELD. They want me to run an obstacle course with a group of trainees. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’ve been auditing a couple of classes at NYU.”

“Really?” Iron Man perked up with interest. “What are you studying?”

“I don’t know if I’d really call it studying anything. They’re just a couple of classes that SHIELD recommended: a beginner’s computer course, and an introduction to college life.”

Iron Man stared at him in silence while inside the suit Tony snorted in disbelief.

 _“What idiot picked those classes?”_ he asked JARVIS privately.

Steve blushed and reached up to rub the back of his neck.

“I know,” he admitted with embarrassment. “Because waking up seventy years in the future is just like going off to university for the first time.” He smiled self-depreciatively. 

“Have you learned anything?”

“Some.” Steve blushed again. “I had never thought of sex as something that could kill you.”

“You just haven’t been doing it right,” muttered Iron Man, without thinking.

Steve coughed. “What was that?”

“Nothing,” said Iron Man, staring at him innocently.

 _“You’re not very good at this, sir,”_ said JARVIS over the internal speakers.

 _“Shut up,”_ threatened Tony in return. _"There will be no comments from the peanut gallery._

Steve glanced at his watch as he stood from the table. He collected his dirty dishes and moved to the sink where he quickly had them washed.

“I have to leave now,” he said, “but I hope you enjoy your free day.”

O

Tony stared up at the brilliant blue sky watching the clouds float past him. There was nothing quite like the view from the roof of his building on a sunny New York day. 

“How are you doing?”

“Still shaky,” said Tony with disgust. “But inertia’s helpful at keeping me out of trouble. I’ll just lay here and let my troubles float away.”

Iron Man waved his hand through the air.

“I do not understand this emotion,” said JARVIS. “Isn’t this a good thing?”

“Oh, yes, wonderful,” said Tony sarcastically. “I’m hiding inside Iron Man like a pathetic coward because I’m too weak to face my own life.”

“That’s not what I see,” said JARVIS, quietly. “I see a man strong enough to admit that he needed help. Just a year ago, you wouldn’t have.”

Tony sighed within the suit.

“I’m frustrated,” he admitted. “I shouldn’t be like this anymore. This was the Old Tony’s problem.”

He was quiet for a moment, just Iron Man lying on a roof.

“I thought I was a better person.” Tony squinted. “Is it just me or does that cloud look like Dum-E?”

“I think you’re getting off track, sir.”

“There is no track, JARVIS. That’s the whole point. I’m off the rails on the crazy train.”

This time JARVIS was the one to sigh. 

“Dr. Banner is heading towards the kitchen to make his lunch. I think you should join him.”

“So I can watch him eat? What good is that going to do?”

“You’ve had enough alone time, sir. Go downstairs.”

O

Bruce looked up from the sandwich he was building.

“Hey, Iron Man.” He looked around with a confused expression. “Where’s your shadow, er, shadowee…Tony?”

“It’s my day off,” replied Iron Man.

Bruce carried his plate to the table and upon sitting down focused all of his attention on his meal, glancing up just once in curiosity.

“You get those?”

“On occasion.”

The corner of Bruce’s mouth twitched into a half smile.

“You deserve it,” he said, wiping crumbs from his mouth. “The Avengers can be a full-time job and Tony Stark is at least three between time spent at SHIELD, Stark Industries, and the private labs. To be honest, I’m amazed you manage to sleep.”

“Sometimes he doesn’t,” JARVIS told Bruce helpfully.

 _“Thanks a lot,”_ muttered Tony privately, ducking Iron Man’s head.

“Next time, make sure he does, JARVIS,” ordered Bruce with a friendly grin. There was a slight pause. “That goes for both of them.”

“I shall make every effort, Dr. Banner,” promised JARVIS. 

“So what have you been up to with an entire day of nothing to do?”

“Puttered around a bit,” answered Iron Man evasively.

“Bored out of your mind already?” asked Bruce with an amused smirk.

“Yes!” Iron Man looked away rather sheepishly. “Is it that obvious?”

“Only because I know you,” said Bruce with a grin. “You’re welcome to join me in the labs. I’m working with the starfish again.”

Iron Man tilted his head from side to side, debating. On the one hand, it was always fun working with Bruce and he’d certainly keep his mind occupied and away from dangerous thoughts. On the other hand, Iron Man wasn’t really suited for tiny detailed lab work. Plus, he wasn’t sure he could remember to be Iron Man once he became involved in the research.

“Thank you,” said Iron Man slowly with reluctance, “but I must decline.”

Bruce shrugged, giving Iron Man a friendly smile.

“You know where to find me if you change your mind.”

He ate in silence. Iron Man sat beside him, finding the simple presence of another human being to be soothing. As Bruce was cleaning his few dirty dishes, he spoke again.

“You know, if you’re looking for something to do, you should catch Clint once he wakes up.”

“He’s still asleep?” Tony used a flick of his eyes to enlarge the chronometer on the holographic display. “It’s one in the afternoon.”

Bruce gave Iron Man a disapproving glare.

“He’s allowed the sleep in,” he said. “Especially since he didn’t get home until near dawn.”

“You pay a lot of attention to our habits,” remarked Iron Man.

Bruce stared at the floor.

“You know what it’s like to miss missions,” he said, softly, still speaking to his feet. “Even when the Hulk makes the mission, I still don’t get to help.”

“So you’re trying to make it up to us by being a mother hen,” said Iron Man, speaking without thinking.

Bruce glared.

“I didn’t mean it like that!” spoke Iron Man, hurriedly, holding up his hands. “It’s…it’s nice. Unnecessary, but nice.”

“Someone needs to watch out for you all,” he said.

“Someone always is,” replied Iron Man. 

JARVIS said nothing.

O

“What’s going on here?” asked Steve as he entered the living room.

Clint and Iron Man were sitting on the floor, hands busy, eyes intent upon the television. Clint sat cross-legged while Iron Man had his legs straight out leaning forward at the waist with impossible flexibility. The image on the screen was a vivid burst of color and rapidly changing scenery. 

“I’m winning!” crowed Clint. “I can fly better than Iron Man.”

“He won’t let me plug directly into the system,” grumbled Iron Man, as his plane crashed into the ground.

“That would be cheating,” said Clint, leaning over to gloat.

“My gloves are bigger than the controllers.” He wiggled his fingers in the air. “ You have an unfair advantage.”

“He’s just a sore loser,” replied Clint, turning to find Steve staring at them. “What’s up?”

“You can connect your...” Steve waved his hand towards Iron Man. “Your you to the computer game? Why would you do that?”

“So that if the fate of the free world ever depended on me saving the princess, I can do it.”

Steve turned to Clint with a helpless expression.

“Look,” said Iron Man, holding up one hand apologetically. “You said it yourself when you called it a computer. The armor’s designed to synch up and adapt to that kind of software. The fact that I can use it to play games is just a bonus.”

“I still don’t understand why.”

“Because I can.” Iron Man gave a shrug. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“So wait,” interrupted Clint. “You helped design the suit?”

“I’m not just a pretty face,” replied Iron Man.

“You’re not a face at all,” said Steve, shaking his head.

“I have a face,” said Iron Man indignantly. He knocked hollowly on his helmet. “Look: eyes, a mouth; no nose, but I’d just look silly with a nose.”

“Yes, you’re a modern day Helen of Troy. How did I never notice?”

“Willful blindness, I suppose.” Iron Man tossed the controllers to Steve. “How about you give it a go? Let’s see what an old man can do.”

“Wait; shouldn’t we go more old school?”

Iron Man cocked his head considering the idea.

“You think?” he asked Clint. “You don’t want to dazzle him with the best?”

“Would he have appreciated the effects in the Lord of the Rings as much if he hadn’t once thought of the Wizard of Oz as the height of technology?”

“You have a point,” admitted Iron Man. “So should we go Space Invaders or Mario Brothers?”

Iron Man and Clint looked at Steve with intent focus.

“Space Invaders,” decided Clint with a serious nod.

They opened the game closet and pulled out the rolling cart with an Atari 2600. Iron Man unraveled the joystick while Clint set up the system. Steve merely took a seat upon the couch, humoring them with a good natured smile.

“Stark should market this thing,” said Clint, giving covetous glances at the universal adaptor Tony had built to simplify changing out gaming consoles.

“Too many copyright regulations,” said Iron Man.

“Such a pity.” Clint petted the device lovingly as Steve stared at him like he had lost his mind.

Iron Man shrugged. Some things defied explanation.

O

“Pardon me,” said JARVIS, interrupting the video game session that had moved from aliens to the world of Italian plumbers. “Doctor Banner needs Iron Man’s assistance in the kitchen.”

The three men exchanged curious glances as they paused the game.

“He knows I’m no cook,” said Iron Man.

“Maybe he needs you for heavy lifting?” suggested Clint.

Iron Man shrugged as he stood from the couch. He made his way to the kitchen where Bruce had decided to cook dinner for the Avengers. There was large pot steaming on the stove. Tony instinctively took a deep breath because he knew how good Bruce’s cooking usually smelled but none of the aroma made it past the armor. Bruce had his back to the door with his attention focused on the loaf of French bread in his hands. An assortment of cheeses were scattered across the counter. 

Bruce spun around at the first clink of Iron Man’s foot hitting the marble floor.

“Oh, good, you’re here,” he said, opening one of the cupboards. He pulled out a plate and a bowl. Grabbing a clean spoon from the sink, he quickly scooped a hearty serving of stew into the bowl. Two hunks of bread slathered in butter joined the bowl on the plate. Bruce held it out to Iron Man.

“What’s this?” asked Iron Man, making no move to take it.

“You need to eat. Take it and go find a bit of privacy while I finish the sandwiches.”

“No, thanks,” said Iron Man, taking a step away from the food. “I’m good.”

Bruce set the plate on the counter and crossed his arms stubbornly.

“No, you’re not. You haven’t eaten all day.”

“You don’t know that,” protested Iron Man.

“You didn’t eat with Steve this morning,” Bruce said holding up one hand and ticking off his points. “You didn’t eat lunch with me. You were with Clint all afternoon without eating. And you didn’t eat while you were alone because I asked JARVIS and he told me so.”

 _“You and I are going to have a long discussion about privacy,”_ hissed Tony, inside the suit.

 _“Please don’t be stubborn, sir,”_ JARVIS told him.

 _“I’m not…”_ Tony closed his eyes. _“Iron Man doesn’t drink. Iron Man doesn’t eat.”_

“Iron Man,” said Bruce, bringing Tony’s attention back outside of the suit. “I don’t know what’s going on with you today. I don’t know what the problem is, but you can take fifteen minutes to eat a bowl of stew. It’s goat. I promise it’s delicious.”

Bruce’s expression moved from stubborn to pleading as he spoke.

Iron Man nodded once. Iron Man took the plate with a hand that remained steady.

“We’ll see you at dinner,” said Bruce softly. He turned back to layering cheeses between slices of French bread. 

O

“I’ve never had grilled cheese like this,” said Steve. He took a bit of the gooey sandwich and chewed it slowly with a look of bliss on his face.

“I used a mixture of Brie and Tomme de Savoie for the cheeses,” replied Bruce, with a pleased smile at Steve’s reaction. “I wanted a more adult flavor,” he explained.

“What’s this?” asked Clint, poking at the stew. He leaned over the bowl to smell it.

“It’s goat. I’ve had versions of this stew pretty much everywhere I stopped when I was on the run.” Bruce gave an uncomfortable shrug. “This is my version. Try it. It’s good. I like it.”

“It’s wonderful,” said Iron Man.

“You ate some?” asked Clint suspiciously.

Iron Man nodded.

“Just a few minutes ago,” he said. “Absolutely delicious.”

“So there really is a person in there?” Clint leaned forward eyeing Iron Man with a glint of humor in his gaze.

“Of course he’s a person,” exclaimed Steve, offended on Iron Man’s behalf.

“Clint,” said Bruce warningly, rolling his eyes. “You have to excuse him. His favorite game lately is coming up with outlandish explanations for your secret identity.”

“You’ve been trying to figure out who I am?” said Iron Man slowly, sounding shocked.

“Not seriously,” replied Bruce. He glanced sidelong at Clint. “At least, I hope not,” he added.

Clint rolled his eyes.

“It wasn’t that crazy. I’m not saying I actually believed it, but yeah, Stark built Iron Man. Who’s to say, other than, you know, you,” he nodded towards Iron Man, “that the suit’s not actually hollow? Iron Man could be run by computer and we’d never know.”

Iron Man froze. A strange noise that they had never heard before began emanating faintly from underneath the armor. He bent over the table, one hand clenching and unclenching from a fist as it tapped gently at the wood surface. Steve leapt from his seat, bending over Iron Man with concern.

“What’s wrong with him?” he asked, his hands hovering just above the armor.

“Hysterical laughter,” said JARVIS’s droll tone into the room. “I’m afraid he might need a moment to get himself under control.”

“That’s laughter?” asked Clint, disbelievingly.

Bruce let out a snort that he turned into a cough.

“Very loud laughter,” agreed JARVIS. “One might go so far as to call it howling.”

Iron Man sat up and tapped himself gently on the chest.

“Oh My God,” he said, breathlessly. “Thank you. I needed that.”

“Err, you’re welcome?” said Clint.

“Are you sure you aren’t dying?” asked Steve again.

“I’m quite well, my friend.” Iron Man patted Steve on the shoulder.

“You know,” said Clint, as he swallowed an overflowing spoon of stew. “This is nice. Why don’t we do this every night?”

“You mean: why don’t I take the time out of my busy day, every day, to cook for you ungrateful lot?” asked Bruce, with amused sarcasm.

“Yes, exactly that,” replied Clint.

“There’s also the fact that you only know how to cook four things,” reminded Iron Man.

“I can cook more than four things.”

Iron Man waved his hand.

“Breakfast doesn’t count. Even I can cook breakfast.”

“Iron Man, the food critic,” quipped Steve. “Who knew?”

O

Iron Man shuffled into the bedroom feeling pleasantly tired and relaxed. He stopped at the edge of the bed and flopped down upon it.

 _“Ouch,”_ complained Tony, as he jostled around inside the armor. _“Note to self: not as comfortable as it looks.”_

Iron Man spread out like a starfish.

“Do you plan on sleeping inside the suit?” asked JARVIS, dubiously.

 _“Hmm? No.”_ Tony wiggled, shaking Iron Man on the bed. _“Lemme ou’,”_ he mumbled.

The armor’s arms folded away from Tony reforming to hold the rest of the armor in position. The chest of the Iron Man opened depositing Tony onto the bed while the suit leaned over him. Iron Man pulled away to stand at guard at the end of the bed.

“How are you doing, sir?”

“Sleeping,” said Tony petulantly.

“I’ll just leave you to it.”

“No! Stay.” Tony raised his head, becoming more coherent.

“I could hardly do otherwise, sir.”

Tony let his head flop back down onto the bed with a tiny smile.

“That’s why I like you, J. Always here.”

Tony closed his eyes.

Iron Man pulled the blankets up to cover Tony’s shoulders. JARVIS shut out the lights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay. I struggled a bit with this one, and, well, there were distractions. Let's be honest; anyone who has visited my dashboard knows where my mind was last month.
> 
> I need some specific feedback on this chapter. There's quite a bit of back and forth between Tony and JARVIS inside the suit that seems clearly delineated to me but I'm not sure how it reads to people that don't live inside my head. What did you think?


	22. Cinema

22\. Cinema

Clint nestled down within the cushions of his couch with his tablet in hand ready to re-watch last night’s episode of Agents. Agents was an entertaining take on a team of secret government agents hunting down a group of escaped science experiments, a kind of fictionalized hybrid between mutants and the super serum program. The material was familiar enough that it amused all of the Avengers but so absurd that it never hit too close to reality. 

Clint particularly enjoyed pulling apart and piecing together the convoluted, almost conspiracy theorist plot lines, which was why he recorded each episode on his DVR. He was pretty sure he had figured out who killed Lysander, but he needed to confirm a few clues just to make sure. As much as he enjoyed watching the series together with the other Avengers; the rowdier, talkative atmosphere in the shared living room inevitably made Clint miss key parts of the show.

He was halfway through the episode with a dozen notes written in the open word processor document at his side when he noticed the image of a flying metal man in the advertisements speeding in fast-forward across his television. He skipped backwards and played the commercial, a trailer for the upcoming movie Phoenix Rising, from the beginning.

The trailer opened with the image of a well-dressed man with the physique of an underwear model surrounded by the lights and crowds of a Las Vegas casino. The voiceover stated: “Anthony Blight had it all – women,” three beautiful women pressed close to the man gazing up at him with wanton desire; “money,” the man drove a flashy red sports car too fast down a winding mountain road; “power,” the man stood by a monstrous missile caressing it with one manicured hand. “Then he almost lost it all.” The music made an abrupt change as the image of an exploding Hummer filled the screen. “One man saved him,” a man in full body armor rushed into combat with guns blazing, “and together they rose from the ashes to change the world,” a montage of images: a hospital room, crowds waiting outside a limo, then with a triumphant swell of music, the metal robotic figure taking to the sky. The trailer ended with the screen fading into the standard credits image accompanied by a second blander, more officious voiceover: “Phoenix Rising is adapted from the New York Times’ best-seller Phoenix: A Metaphor by Christine Everhart, the only unofficial biography of Tony Stark to be accompanied by a foreword from the man himself.” 

Clint frowned as he paused the playback. He didn’t remember this advertisement appearing during the episode. He remembered the first one from the initial commercial break that he’d fast forwarded past. He hadn’t paid it much attention last night because Tony had interrupted asking if anyone wanted popcorn. In the shuffling of limbs required to allow Pepper and Stark room to exit, they had all missed the movie trailer, but it hadn’t aired again.

He pointed the remote at the television, watching the images zip through at rapid speed. He wasn’t surprised to find two more advertisements for Phoenix Rising that he knew hadn’t aired in the living room last night. Clint glanced up at the ceiling with a considering expression before going back to watch his show.

O

Rhodey stood at the back of the auditorium watching as people bustled by him carrying equipment. It was hard to believe that this whole dog and pony show was being set up just for him. 

When Tony told him that people were making a movie based off of Tony and Iron Man, his first thought had been to do whatever it took to shut that shit down --slap them with so many lawsuits that their grandchildren’s grandchildren had court dates; but Tony thought twenty steps ahead. He knew he could stop this movie and the next movie but eventually they’d change just enough details that Tony couldn’t stop it from going to production. So Tony gave the producers a good scare in court then squeezed them for everything he could get out of them, all the while those poor fools though they’d gotten the better of the deal. This way Tony- well, Pepper but she was working on Tony’s behalf—could make sure the script never strayed too far into sensationalism, while also protecting their secrets; it was the same deal-with-the-devil that they’d made with that reporter.

If Rhodey had a choice, he would never watch a single scene of this perversion, but Tony had agreed to attend the premiere as a way to show his official support for the film and he’d be damned before he would let Tony sit through the film without him. Now he had to watch it twice. The army hadn’t wanted to give him leave to attend the premiere next month. It had taken Tony arranging for a prescreening for a dozen top army bases for the brass to change their mind.

How hard was it to sit a bunch of people in the dark and flash a sequence of lights against a curtain? Did they really need to turn this whole affair into a circus? Even now, he could see people diligently roping off a section of seats for the press…the press! Three men were fiddling with a podium because some idiot had decided that they needed an hour of speeches before sitting down to watch that load of tripe masquerading as Tony’s life story. Trust the military to still be trying to save face years after the fact.

“Who peed in your cornflakes?” asked a familiar voice behind Rhodey.

He spun around saying, “Callie!”

He wrapped his arms around her tiny figure then pulled back. He stared at her face, noting the lines that hadn’t been there the last time they’d spoken. At least she had stopped losing weight.

“You look well,” he lied.

“So how bad is this thing going to be?” she asked, nodding her head towards the auditorium.

“Why did you come?” he asked, instead. He’d known they were inviting the families, but he hadn’t thought anyone would be foolish enough to attend. Who really wanted to see a fictional version of your husband or wife being killed on screen?

“I owe it to Jack,” she said, simply.

“He wouldn’t want you here,” replied Rhodey. 

“I know.” Callie smiled sadly. “But someone has to remind people that the Jericho Ambush was a real event. They may have turned it into a bit part in a Hollywood movie but real people died. My husband’s never coming home.”

“We haven’t forgotten Jack,” said Rhodey hoarsely. “I miss him every day.”

He’d been a good man, and one of Rhodey’s closer friends despite the difference in their ranks.

“Oh, Rhodey,” she said, brushing a tear from her eye. “You know I didn’t mean you. And your friend, Mr. Stark, he’s been good to us, to all the families.”

“That’s Tony, for you,” replied Rhodey with a shrug. “He can’t bring your loved ones back but he can make sure you never need for anything.”

“Well, you tell him that he doesn’t have to,” she said sternly. “It wasn’t his fault. They were doing their job.”

“I won’t ask him to stop,” he refused, holding up his hand to stop her protest. “If Tony could track down every family who was hurt when Stark weapons fell into the wrong hands, he would; but right now you’re the only ones he can help. Don’t take that away from him.”

“You’re a good man, Colonel Rhodes.” She bumped her hip against his thigh, giving him a bittersweet smile.

“All an act, my dear,” he said, grinning back at her. He glanced around the auditorium which had been filling as they finished talking. “It looks like we’re almost ready to start.” Rhodey held his arm out to her with exaggerated gallantry. “Shall I escort you to your seat?”

“Why, thank you,” she said, placing a hand on his elbow.

He led her down to a section near the front leaving her in the company of friends. Immediately, people began approaching him.

“Colonel Rhodes, man of the hour.”

Rhodes turned, pasting a smile on his face when he found himself outranked. He greeted the men, pulling on his Stark-given gifts of smoozing. It was an eternity later when he was finally allowed to slip into his seat.

As the speakers at the front droned on, the woman beside him leaned over, muttering to him, “All this over a movie?”

Rhodey shook his head silently. Nothing was ever simple when Tony was involved, even when his involvement was peripheral. 

Then the lights finally dimmed and the screen came to life. The beginning of the movie was surreal, so close to reality, but then Tony had spent the months before Afghanistan out and about being very loudly, very publicly Stark. When the ambush came, Rhodey closed his eyes until the explosions faded. He turned his head, finding Callie in the crowd, watching the flickering colors reflecting off the wetness of her cheeks.

He didn’t watch as Anthony Blight suffered through a mere fraction of Tony’s personal hell. He didn’t watch the worried faces of the people left behind. But when the movie diverged into pure fantasy, he sat mesmerized. This was the way it should have happened. Rhodey could almost feel the weight of the armor, the drive he would have felt going into battle. Tony shouldn’t have been alone. It should have been Rhodey blowing the Ten Rings out of existence.

In that one instance, Rhodey forgave everyone. He forgave Hollywood for making him ten years younger and Latino; because Javier “Rhodey” Rodriquez burst into that cave, sweeping his best friend into his arms and carrying him to safety – just like Rhodey wished he could have.

O

They looked like something out of a Vanity Fair photo shoot, thought Clint, as he watched the Stark family assemble in the living room from his position sprawled across the couch. Levering himself upright, he pulled a pillow onto his lap as he sat cross-legged. 

Stark’s friend, Rhodey, looked drool-worthy in his dress uniform while Pepper had never been hotter in formfitting indigo chiffon. For the first time, he could see why Stark once topped Most Eligible Bachelor and Sexiest Man lists the world wide, though he had to give the credit to Pepper’s skills as a cosmetologist, because Tony had looked like hung-over road kill just this morning. Clint had seen Stark dressed up but he had never seen him wearing what Rhodey called his “Playboy outfits”. He wore a grey jacket with black lined lapels, a tight blue shirt a few shades off of Pepper’s dress, and…

“Is that a kilt?” he said, staring at Stark’s lap.

Stark looked over at him, but stayed silent as he fiddled with the hem lines, rearranging how they fell. Clint couldn’t help the small snort that emerged. He opened his mouth to comment, but then he glanced up.

Rhodey and Pepper stood behind Tony with Iron Man placed behind them. Pepper was watching him with an icy glare on her face that promised all manner of unspeakable threats; and she knew where Clint slept. Rhodey looked him over with murder in his eyes, subtly tightening his fists. Even Iron Man, who only had one expression, seemed to loom more menacingly in the background.

“I didn’t know you were Scottish,” said Clint, instead.

“His father’s mother was a Macgregor,” said JARVIS, in the clipped perfunctory tones of an annoyed tour guide. 

“Please,” said Tony. “It’s not like I’m wearing the family tartan.” He stroked one hand down the dark fabric.

It wasn’t until Tony spoke sounding much more like himself that Clint realized how quiet he was being. No wonder everyone was being so hostile. A quiet Stark was never a good thing.

Rhodey glanced at his phone.

“Happy has the car ready for us downstairs,” he announced.

“Enjoy the premiere,” said Clint, waving them goodbye.

“Don’t wait up, boys,” said Pepper, kissing Rogers and Bruce on the cheeks as they squeezed into the room. She waved at Clint as Rhodey placed a hand on her shoulder to lead her away.

“Had she been drinking?” asked Rogers, staring after them with a worried expression.

“Probably,” said Bruce, tiredly. He collapsed onto the other end of the couch. “None of them want to attend tonight.”

Rogers made a wordless sound of sympathy.

“So what was the deal with the kilt?” asked Clint. He’d always been more curious than was good for him. “I thought they were going to bite my head off for asking.”

“I’m not quite sure,” admitted Bruce, shrugging uncomfortably. “I think it was something of a lucky outfit, you know, something that he used to wear Before.”

“Doesn’t explain the hostility,” muttered Clint.

“If he feels better wearing a skirt, let him. It’s not like any of us have room to judge someone’s attire,” said Rogers, sounding irritated.

“I wasn’t going to make fun of him. I mean, yeah, I was, but he’s Stark. He can handle it.”

“Clint, drop it,” ordered Bruce. His voice dropped to a register that normally preceded Mr. Big, Green, and Angry.

Clint shut up.

“No one with a history like Tony’s should be forced to watch their life story turned into entertainment. We’re not going to bash anything that makes the situation a little more bearable for him.”

“Sorry,” said Clint.

Bruce shook his head.

“I don’t think you would have offended Tony, but he’s a little fragile now, yeah?”

“No, I’ve got you. I just wasn’t thinking how much they must hate this. I mean, I’ve seen Tony these last few weeks, but I guess I’ve just never thought,” Clint paused to put his thoughts into words. “He’s Tony Stark. No one makes him do anything he doesn’t want to do.”

“Why is Stark attending the premiere?” asked Rogers, curiously.

“I’m not Tony’s nanny,” exclaimed Bruce with exasperation.

“JARVIS?” asked Clint, tilting his head towards one of the security cameras. “Could you tell us?”

“The event is part of a deal Mr. Stark signed with the producers. In exchange for twenty percent of the profits going to Life for Limbs and the Wounded Warrior Project, Mr. Stark agreed to show his support for Phoenix Rising by attending the New York premiere.”

“That sounds like a steep price to pay for one man to walk the red carpet.”

“At the time, Mr. Stark had a lawsuit in motion to stop production. They needed his cooperation in order to make the movie.”

“Why not shut them down?” asked Clint.

“Too much of Stark’s life is public domain.” They all turned when Sam’s voice spoke from the doorway. “A movie was going to be made eventually. At least this way, Stark got a piece of the pie.”

“You seem knowledgeable,” pointed out Rogers.

Sam shrugged. “SHIELD has had men seeded at all levels of production.”

Clint nodded. “I think Nata spent a week with their legal team.”

“I just came to inform you that I’ll be out of contact tonight,” said Sam, looking at each of them individually. “I’m heading Stark’s security.”

“Good luck,” said Clint, meaning it. They all had to be careful with planned public appearances but Stark attracted a special kind of crazy. He got everyone from grandmothers who wanted to pinch his cheeks, to “Please, won’t you sign my breasts, to “Let me take you to my lair where you will build me weapons of mass destruction.”

Sam gave him a sarcastic two-fingered salute. He glanced around the room one more time, as though making sure everyone was settled, and then left. 

“So what are we going to do tonight?” asked Clint, stretching his arms above his head.

Bruce looked surprised. He turned towards Rogers then looked down at his watch.

“I suppose we could go get dinner. How does Cucina sound?”

“Works for me.” Clint hopped off the couch and was half way to the door before either of the other two moved. “You coming?”

O

Stark entered the kitchen in a manner that could only be described as stumbling, scrapping his wheels against the frame and bumping into the door. His bleary eyes were half shut as he blinked at the bright overhead lights.

“Drink up,” said Steve, pushing a steaming mug across the table to Stark’s seat.

“What the hell is this?” he asked, hoarsely, wincing as the hot liquid scalded his tongue.

“NAAFI tea. The RAF boys used to swear by it.”

“So how’d you get some?”

“I have my sources,” replied Steve, smirking mysteriously. Of course, by sources, Steve meant that he asked the first British fellow that he met at SHIELD, but Stark didn’t need to know that. 

“Do you always make two cups?” Stark eyed his suspiciously over the table.

“Your, um, JARVIS informed me that you were on your way down.” Steve gave a tentative smile.

“Traitor,” muttered Stark.

“I’m usually awake, and I knew you would be too, tonight.”

“I suppose I should count myself lucky he only locked me out of my kitchen,” said Stark lowly, still talking to himself. He set the mug down and held his body stiffly as though preparing for a blow. Stark looked directly at Steve with tired eyes. “Look, Rogers, what do you want?” he asked, wearily.

“You shouldn’t be alone tonight,” Steve replied simply.

Stark looked shocked. It gave Steve the courage to continue.

“I know how painful tonight must have been. I’ve seen some of the Captain America movies.”

Stark smirked, which would have been offensive, except Steve knew exactly where Stark’s mind had wandered.

“I don’t mean MY Captain America movies,” he said, with a brief grin. “Those are a different kind of painful to watch. No, I mean the movies that they made after, you know, after I—“

Steve trailed off not knowing exactly what to call it. He felt a familiar aching melancholy setting over him.

“I didn’t sleep for a week after I saw the first one,” he admitted softly. 

“They got everything important wrong, just like I intended them to, but still…” Stark shrugged silently.

“It stirs everything up just when you hoped the dust had finally settled.”

“Exactly.” Stark gave an unhappy smile, raising his mug towards Steve.

Stark didn’t say anything else. Steve just let him sit, sipping occasionally at his tea. When both of their cups were empty, he made two more. Steve was free all night; he might as well spend it sitting here in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I noticed as I was writing this chapter that the Avengers spend an awful lot of time sitting around talking about Tony Stark, which to be fair, is probably about how it would end up in real life. Tony Stark, life’s never-ending source of gossip. 
> 
> I know that I’m really pushing it on the timeline for the movie Phoenix Rising. I figure there was probably a Tony Stark movie of some sort in the works before Afghanistan ever happened which turned into a different project which turned into this one. Still, they would have to have had an exceedingly speedy production to be premiering already.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who commented on the last chapter, and waited patiently for this one. You were very helpful. If there’s a long delay again, feel free to send me prompts or reminders of things I promised to come back to.


	23. Liaison

23\. Liaison

 

“Guess who’s back?” asked Sam into the microphone.

“Be still my heart,” came the familiar voice of Sam’s best friend Sharon. “That can’t be Sam Wilson’s voice I hear.”

“The one and only, baby,” he said with a grin.

“Falcon’s back!”

He could hear a wave of chatter over the radio as he quickly logged into his station. He checked over the equipment to make sure that everything was where it should be. 

“When did you get clear?” asked Sharon.

“Just this morning. You guys are my first run,” he replied.

Today was the first time Sam had returned to work since the Battle of New York. He’d been knocked out during the fighting on the helicarrier, sustaining a concussion, but he’d talked his way onto one of the squads sent to defend the city. Unfortunately, head injuries were nothing to shrug off and he’d been paying for his actions by suffering complication after complication. He’d spent the last six months alternating between headaches and nausea and mood swings so bad that even Sam hadn’t wanted to put up with himself. Thankfully all of that was behind him and he could finally get back to work.

“We’re hitting the ground in five.”

Sam began pulling up feeds to all of the security feeds in the area. He flickered through them building a mental layout of the area. The monitor in the far right corner showed a man who fit the description of their target. His team appeared at the edge of the scene on the center lower right monitor.

“I have you and I have him,” he told the team leader. “Come in to the south.”

He could read the video footage so well, combining it in his mind, that he couldn’t have a better view of the action if he’d been flying over the scene. He led his team through the streets keeping them on the tail of their target as he tried to flee. He grinned listening to the whoops of his team as they tackled the target to the ground. Sam never would have thought it was possible when he first started but it was just as satisfying to work behind the scenes as it was working in the field.

Sam took his time backing out of the various computer systems, making sure that the owners never realized that he had temporarily hijacked their closed circuit networks. He blinked having trouble focusing. He turned his gaze to the rest of his office hoping that his eyes were just fatigued from the computer screens but everything had a weird fuzzy outline like the color was bleeding over the lines.

“Falcon, is everything all right?”

“I don’t know,” he said, uncertainly.

He stood unsteadily, aware that someone had appeared at his side, but he pushed past them to hunch over the wastebasket as he lost his lunch. He groaned as he closed his eyes. His head felt like something had exploded inside. The glare of the light felt like ice picks stabbing his brain.

“Come on.” Hands gently lifted him up. “Let’s get you to the infirmary.”

He followed the guiding hands blindly. Every step down the hallways was an exercise in agony. He barely noticed when he was eased down onto the soft mattress. Someone turned down the lights and he almost whimpered in relief. Then the nausea hit again and he was rolling over to vomit off the side of the bed. There was a sharp prick in the crook of his arm sending him drifting into the darkness.

O

Sam blinked cautiously in the bright white of the infirmary, but the pain seemed to be gone. He still felt groggy as he shifted under the light blanket.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” said Sharon, leaning into his line of sight.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, confused. “You’re in Boston.”

“That was two days ago. The medication they gave you hit you like a semi-truck.”

“Oh.” Two days? Really?

Sharon glared at him, punching him lightly in the shoulder.

“You scared the hell out of me, Mister. One moment you were there and then we couldn’t raise anybody. I thought something had happened to you.”

“Something did happen to me,” objected Sam.

“Nothing major,” said Sharon dismissively. “It was just a migraine. I’ve had migraines for years.”

“That was a migraine?” asked Sam, feeling embarrassed. “I felt like I was dying.”

She looked more serious.

“The docs wanted to talk to you as soon as you were awake,” she said, quietly. “They didn’t look happy.”

“You said it was just a migraine. How bad could it be?”

“I don’t know, but I’d better go get them.”

She left him alone to stare at the ceiling. He felt fine now, even though he’d lost two days, so he wasn’t worried until he saw the faces of his doctors standing in the doorway.

“Agent Wilson, I thought I told you not to visit for a while,” said his neurologist.

“I just missed you so much,” he said with a grin.

She gave him a sad smile but didn’t joke back. He felt a knot forming in his stomach.

“I’m afraid we have good news and bad news.”

“Good news first,” he said, immediately.

“We redid all of your scans and your brain still looks good.”

“So what’s the bad news?”

“We’re pulling you from active duty,” said the other doctor, bluntly. “Your migraine is a sign that the complications from your concussion are not finished. I can’t in good conscience recommend you for field duty for a minimum of three more months.”

“But I wasn’t in the field,” he protested.

“That’s the other bad news,” continued his neurologist. “It appears that your migraine was due to visual triggers. I have a rather long list of activities that you need to refrain from or limit your exposure to, which will prevent you from performing your normal duties. I’m sorry, Sam, but you have to go back on medical leave.”

O

Sam was lying in the hospital bed, feeling bored. Sharon had left over an hour ago and he was just waiting for the doctors to come with his latest test results, and hopefully, permission for him to go home. The knock at the door wasn’t unexpected but the face on the other side was.

Director Nick Fury marched into the room like he owned it.

“Sir!” exclaimed Sam in shock that rapidly turned to horror. An icy feeling grew in the pit of his stomach. “Am I being kicked out?” he blurted.

“Yes,” growled the director, staring at him with his one intense eye. “You’ve been lolly-gagging in my infirmary long enough.”

Sam felt like the ground had been knocked out from underneath him.

Fury turned to his companion. “Sitwell, tell the doctors to release him.”

Sam stared at them, confusion warring with hope. Numbly, he caught the clothing that Fury tossed to him.

“Get dressed. My office. Five minutes.”

Fury was gone before Sam realized what was happening. It was just now sinking in that he was being kicked out of the infirmary, not SHIELD. His heart began to slow from its thundering pace. He pulled on the clothes slowly, still feeing dazed. He was staring vacantly at the door when Sitwell reappeared.

“Sorry about that,” said Sitwell, apologetically. “I was supposed to collect you for our meeting but-“he shrugged, “Director Fury’s in a mood.”

“Just to clarify,” said Sam, “I’m not being medically retired?”

“Nothing of the sort.”

Sam nodded as the last of his anxiety slipped away. He didn’t know Agent Sitwell very well but he was the serious sort and not one to joke about this kind of thing regardless. Sam pushed himself up onto his feet, swaying slightly as he regained his balance. He held the bed rail for a moment but there was no dizziness, no pain; he was good to go. Taking a step away, Sam waved his hand to indicate that Sitwell should lead the way.

In Fury’s office, the three of them sat in a stoic circle of silence, watching each other with measuring gazes. Fury leaned back, resting his hands on the desk in front of him.

“I had a meeting with your doctors this morning. I trust you’re aware of their recommendations.”

Sam nodded.

“You’re not much use to me if you can’t use a computer and I can’t assign you to paperwork because they don’t want you reading more than five minutes at a time.”

“I know, sir,” replied Sam, feeling as though he was letting the director down. “I think I’m up to field work, but with the migraine complications from the concussion the doctors have revoked my clearance.”

“So what do you suggest I do with you?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

Agent Sitwell pushed a folder across the desk towards Sam. Sam picked it up tentatively, flipping through it. A quick scan revealed that the file contained personality profiles and performance reports with accompanying photographs that were very familiar: Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk, the Asgardian, and two of his coworkers.

“The Avengers?” he asked, looking up at the two men with a questioning expression. He couldn’t see what this folder might have to do with him. “I don’t understand.”

“Agent Coulson began building the team but he,” here Fury paused, with an uncharacteristic display of discomfort, “died before he could finish. They’re unraveling and we need someone to put them back together.”

“You want me to be an Avenger?” He stared at the two men waiting for the joke.

“We want you to replace Agent Coulson,” said Agent Sitwell.

Sam winced and shook his head.

“Coulson was a legend. You can’t think that I can fill his shoes.”

“The team is falling apart, Agent Wilson,” said Fury, leaning forward to stare at him intently. “They don’t know how to get along, how to be a team. They need a teacher, an external leader—someone to tie them back to SHIELD.”

“Why me?” asked Sam, seriously. “You don’t give someone an assignment like this just because you don’t know what else to do with them.”

“You underestimate yourself Agent Wilson,” said Sitwell. “When it became apparent that we would have to replace Phil, your name was at the top of my list. The past few years you’ve been our go-to mentor for bringing the lone wolves into the fold.”

“I didn’t want you for the position.” Fury spoke with his normal uncaring brashness. “You’re too useful to me to waste as a baby sitter… or at least you were until you went and broke your brain.” He made it sound like Sam had intentionally become concussed.

Sam stared down at the file sitting innocently on the desk. He looked up at the two men.

“I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

“Not unless you’d prefer sitting at home twiddling your thumbs,” replied Fury without an ounce of sympathy.

Sam nodded resolutely.

“Tell me what you need me to do.”

O

“Attention all Avengers and Tony Stark: Director Fury has arrived downstairs and has requested a team meeting.” JARVIS made the announcement through every speaker in the upper floors of the Tower.

“Wait,” said Tony, using a rag to wipe his hands. He tossed the cloth to the table. “Can he do that? Just show up at my house and call a meeting?”

“He’s Director Fury,” replied JARVIS.

“Good point.” Tony took a whiff of his shirt. He wrinkled his nose. “I’m going to take a shower before I head upstairs. Let them know I will be on my way.”

“Of course, sir.”

O

 

“You seem familiar with the layout,” commented Sam as Fury led them through the apartments.

“I memorized the floor plans,” replied Fury, dryly though Sam had the feeling that there was more to the story than that. Fury glanced at him. “Never let them see you out of place. You have to keep the upper hand.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Sam automatically, though he wondered how he was supposed to keep the upper hand when faced with a team of superheroes.

“Stark refused to add a boardroom, said he had enough of those downstairs, so we’ll have to use the kitchen table.”

He looked disgruntled but again Sam had the impression that Fury was actually rather comfortable being around the Avengers’ tower.

The kitchen was pretty much what Sam would have expected from a Tony Stark kitchen if Tony Stark had been the kind of name one associated with kitchens. The room looked like it had been selected from a magazine: the perfect mix of opulent and functional. Fury barely spared the space a glance before taking his place at the head of the table. He waved for Sam to sit at his right hand side. Sam sat, forcing his body to be straight but relaxed, as he tried not to get nervous. He’d never had the opportunity to meet any of the super powered Avengers.

Sam reminded himself that he’d spent the past weeks preparing very thoroughly for this assignment. He’d read all of the files and oh so slowly worked his way through all of the film. He’d even viewed recordings off all of their interactions with each other at SHIELD. While he was sure that he was barely scrapping the edge of the iceberg, he was confident that he could at least steer the team in the right direction. Fury hadn’t exaggerated when he said that the Avengers were falling apart. They looked lost most of the time and it was a miracle that the discord hadn’t affected their fighting yet.

Agents Barton and Romanoff arrived first, hovering together in the doorway as their sharp eyes surveyed the room missing nothing. They moved into the kitchen with two quick nods.

“Director.”

“Falcon.”

Fury and Sam greeted them in return.

“Hawkeye.”

“Black Widow.”

There was a snort from the doorways. Sam glanced up to find a rather nondescript, unassuming man approaching the doorway. Sam recognized him from the photographs as the human alternate of the Hulk, Dr. Bruce Banner. It was strange to think that a man like him could house such destructive anger.

“If you guys start referring to me as Hulk, I’m going back to my labs,” said Banner in an amused tone.

“Of course not, Doctor,” replied Sam.

Banner outright laughed, shaking his head.

“You SHIELD people will do anything to avoid using real names,” he said.

“You’re SHIELD people now,’ reminded Agent Romanoff.

Doctor Banner looked surprised, and then smiled ruefully. “So I am,” he replied. He took a seat beside the two agents a respectable distance away from Sam and Fury.

Captain America and Thor walked in together with none of the caution that the others had displayed. They appeared at ease and unworried, each slightly sweaty and dressed for exercise. Sam was disappointed that he didn’t get to see the Norse God in his full regalia, but he consoled him with the thought that he would be around often enough to see it in the future.

“Director Fury,” greeted Captain America with a polite nod. He turned his attention to Sam giving him a brief onceover. “I’m afraid we haven’t met,” he said with a friendly smile.

Sam stood.

“Agent Sam Wilson,” he said, holding his hand out.

“Steve Rogers.” Captain America’s handshake was, of course, firm and decisive. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Like wise,” replied Sam politely. He was shaking Captain America’s hand! He made sure that none of his internal giddiness was evident.

Captain America and Thor took the empty seats to Fury’s left. 

They all stared at each other silently, as they waited for the remaining two people.

“Hey, RoboButler,” said Fury raising his voice. “Care to tell your master to hurry his ass up? I don’t have all day.”

“He is already on his way,” replied Stark’s electronic monitoring system. It was amazing how life-like Stark had managed to make the thing; Sam didn’t know of any of the AI on base that could have deciphered Fury’s sarcasm. After a brief pause, the program spoke again in much frostier tones, “And I am hardly a robot.”

Sam’s eyes widened as he glanced around the table in disbelief. Fury smirked at him, amused at his shock. Captain America watched the exchange intently.

He leaned forward asking curiously, “Is Stark’s computer really that unusual?”

“Yes,” said Sam, whole heartedly. He shook his head. “There are simple artificial intelligence programs in the civilian world and some amazingly high-tech ones at SHIELD, but nothing like this. That’s amazing.”

“Thank you, Agent Wilson,” replied the AI. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced; I’m JARVIS.”

“Pleased to meet you, JARVIS,” said Sam, through a suddenly dry mouth. This felt almost as momentous as meeting Captain America. Sam had always been fascinated by the idea of a sentient computer and Stark’s JARVIS sounded so so close. He could almost pretend that the program was a real person. His thoughts were interrupted by a voice out in the hall.

“Thanks for waiting for me,” it said.

Then Iron Man was entering the room, seeming somehow to be both much smaller and much larger in person. Behind him was the infamous Tony Stark and Sam was surprised for a moment before remembering, oh right, Stark was in a wheelchair now. He was used to thinking of him as the dashing celebrity from the magazines, even though it had been years since Stark himself had dominated the press. Nowadays all of the coverage focused on Iron Man and his company.

“One-Eye, Guy-I-Don’t-Know,” greeted Stark with his trademarked flippancy.

“Sit your ass down,” growled Fury, glaring at Stark. “You have wasted enough of my time today.”

“I love you too, sweetheart,” quipped Stark with a grin as he and Iron Man filled out the rest of the table. “So what brings you to my humble abode?”

Sam glanced between Director Fury and Tony Stark taken aback by their banter. As angry as the exchange had sounded, there was no real animosity behind it. Abruptly, Sam wondered how man of the rumors of their epic arguments had been just that, rumors.

“They do that,” said Clint with a shrug, though he shut up when Fury glared at him.

“All right, you miscreants,” said Fury, silencing the group. “I called you here to introduce you to your new SHIELD liaison. This is Agent Sam Wilson. You answer to him now.”

“I don’t think so,” said Stark immediately, crossing his arms. He glared at Fury ignoring Sam completely.

Captain America looked confused.

“The Avengers answer to him,” he said slowly. “Am I being replaced?”

“Absolutely not, Captain Rogers,” replied Fury.

“He’s replacing Agent,” interrupted Stark, his voice rising, “which is absolutely ridiculous because Agent doesn’t need replacing. No, we don’t need this interloper.”

“Stark,” said Romanoff sharply.

“No,” he said angrily, staring at her. “I made allowances for Agent, but this guy…no.” He shook his head. He stared directly at Sam. “This is my tower and you’re not welcome here.”

“That’s funny because I didn’t think any of us were welcome,” muttered Captain America lowly. It was only the sudden quiet that enabled Sam to hear his words. Thor gave his teammate an unreadable glance and patted him on the shoulder.

“That’s it. I’m done with this meeting,” said Stark, pushing back from the table.

“Anthony Stark,” barked Director Fury. “If you move one more inch, I’ll—“

“You’ll what?” asked Stark, unmoved by Fury’s threat.

Glancing between the two of them, Sam had to admit that Stark had balls of steel.

“Don’t take it personally,” said a quiet voice near Sam’s ear. He turned to find the Iron Man helmet close to his face. “Agent Coulson is a touchy subject for Mr. Stark, for many of the team.”

“I’m not trying to replace Agent Coulson,” said Sam, softly. “I can’t. I just want to do my job.”

The armor returned to its normal upright position, leaving Sam to wonder if his words had had any impact.

“Sit down, Stark,” said Fury, sounding sad and exhausted.

Stark silently returned to his place at the table, shocking most of the other occupants.

“SHIELD is bigger than any of you could possibly imagine and I’m just one man,” began Fury solemnly. “I can’t be on call for every little problem you people have. You need a manager, a liaison, someone who is looking out for you and your best interests. Agent Wilson needs a job. Give him a chance.” He stared long and silently at each of the Avengers, lingering longest on Captain America and Stark. “Or else.”

Fury stood from the table in a single smooth movement and swept from the room leaving Sam behind.

Sam felt a flare of panic at being left alone with his new team. This must be what if felt like to be thrown to the lions. Abruptly, he became aware that every eye in the room was staring at him expectantly.

“Err, hi?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought with the airing of Winter Soldier and the introduction of Sam Wilson that it would be a good time to give some of the background for my version of the Falcon. He might eventually take on some aspects of the canon character, but I haven’t seen the movie yet so I don’t know. (I’m not worried about spoilers, though, so feel free to discuss.)
> 
> This story is pretty Tony-centric but I was wondering how interested people would be if I did more chapters like this one that focused solely on the other characters.


	24. Vigilance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one jumps around more than usual so timeline: midway through Iron Man, interlude between movies, early Iron Man 2, Avengers.

24\. Vigilance

O

“Did that really just happen?”

He stared out the window at his driveway where he could see the settling dust left by Director Fury’s vehicle.

“I’m afraid so, sir,” said JARVIS.

Tony shook his head then jerked abruptly, turning around.

“JARVIS!” he exclaimed. “Are you all right? He didn’t hurt you? I mean, I know you said everything was fine but you weren’t lying for our visitor, were you? I should check your code to make sure.”

“There is no need, sir,” replied JARVIS in a calm soothing voice. “His overrides only bypassed my communications protocols. Now that we are aware the codes are there I have ensured that they are no longer effective.”

“I still don’t like it,” said Tony petulantly. “SHEILD knows too much about how I program. If they can infiltrate you, they could gain access to anything I’ve designed.”

“True, but you are nothing but adaptive, sir.”

Tony perked up at that reminder.

“And they’re using your work as the basis for all of their artificial intelligence. You could control their system. They’ll never be able to hide from you.”

“I can’t believe my dad stole from me,” complained Tony sounding disappointed before continuing with incredulity, “I can’t believe my dad was a spy.”

“It does seem that Howard Stark had hidden depths.”

 

“I want you to search through all of Stark Industries records, especially the family ones, for any mention of SHIELD. Find out everything you can about the organization but don’t approach them directly, not yet; they’ll be expecting it.”

“Do you think Director Fury was lying?” asked JARVIS.

“No, I believe he was being truthful.” Tony wrapped a hand around the box of old memorabilia in his lap. “But a man who spent an hour lecturing me on the value of keeping secrets is not the type of person who reveals all of his cards on the first hand.”

“We can’t trust him.”

“I’ve been willfully blind for so long.” Tony shook his head sadly. “We can’t afford to move forward without knowing who and what we are allying ourselves too. I think we can trust Fury but I will not risk supporting another Stane.”

Tony shuddered lightly at the thought of his oldest friend and mentor. He’d begun to have his suspicions but the evidence that Fury had unveiled had gone deeper than Tony had ever expected. Stane wasn’t just corrupt; he was evil and nestled firmly over everything that was important to Tony --But not for long. Between SHIELD and Iron Man, Obadiah Stane’s days were numbered.

O

“I needed this,” said Rhodey, throwing back the entire double shot of scotch. He let the bottle – one of the thirty-year Macallan Tony noted, though he didn’t begrudge Rhodey for raiding the good stuff—drop to the floor before he sprawled beside it leaning against one of the dark, round ottomans that Pepper had insisted on buying because they completed the look.

“Bad day?” said Tony, in even tones, looking over the edge of his book. 

“That’s the understatement of the year,” replied Rhodey, pouring himself another glass. “My asshole of a best friend got me stuck between a rock and a hard place at work.”

Tony winced.

“Did you have to convince the world that I was Iron Man?” complained Rhodey.

“You agreed to the plan!” protested Tony loudly. He tossed his book down the couch; it was boring anyway; that was the last time he was letting Pepper pick his reading material. “And you were on base when Iron Man fought Stane. Even your idiot bosses should be able to figure that out.”

“Oh, they know I’m not Iron Man. They just won’t believe me when I tell them that I don’t know who is. I barely escaped being court marshaled.”

“You do know who Iron Man is.”

“No I don’t. You’ve never told me who Iron Man is,” said Rhodey quickly, leaning forward to add emphatically, “And you’re not going to.” He continued listing evidence by rote: “I’ve never seen anyone inside the suit. I don’t know of anyone new hanging around your residence. You’ve never introduced me to your new bodyguard. I only ever speak to you now that I’m not a liaison.”

“Sorry,” said Tony softly. He hadn’t meant to cause his friend so much trouble. That had never been part of the plan. The only reason he’d agreed to the redirect was because Rhodey should have been protected from suspicion by his presence on base.

“You should be,” said Rhodey bitterly, tossing back yet another glass of scotch.

There was nothing that Tony could say to that. He couldn’t even suggest that Rhodey slow down the drinking without being a complete hypocrite.

“How could you sign up with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division?” blurted Rhodey slurring and stumbling over the long name.

“They call it SHIELD,” offered Tony in a subdued voice tone. “I didn’t really have much choice. They helped me and protected me in the whole mess with Stane. And…And…” 

Tony sighed. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he confessed. “I don’t know how to be a superhero.”

“Shut up!” said Rhodey, staring at him angrily. “You don’t tell me anything!”

“All right! All right!” Tony held up his hands in surrender. He fell silent.

“Sorry,” mumbled Rhodey, looking aside with an expression of shame. He sealed the bottle of scotch and pushed it away. He scrubbed at his face with the palms of his hands before sitting back and looking Tony in the eyes. “So you’ve allegedly decided to sign your life over to a shadowy government agency because you’re having a crisis of self-confidence for the first time in your life.”

Tony rolled his eyes, feeling a thousand times lighter.

“First of all, I’m not signing my life over to anyone. I’m not joining SHEILD. We’re simply working together.”

Rhodey glared.

Tony glared back.

“It’s open knowledge amongst the people that have open knowledge about SHIELD that Tony Stark and Iron Man have an arrangement with them.”

Rhodey looked mollified. 

“So what do you get out of this arrangement?” asked Rhodey before shaking his head and holding up one hand. “No, wait, stop. I’m too drunk for this conversation.”

He laboriously worked his way up from the floor on to his feet and then stumbled out of the room in the direction of the kitchen while Tony watched silently in bemusement. He returned several minutes later with a rather shabby plate of homemade nachos.

“You need to go grocery shopping,” he informed Tony, sitting back on the floor.

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that,” replied Tony with a smirk. Tony didn’t think he’d set foot inside a grocery store in the last decade and he had no intentions of doing so now. He’d had an online account at one time but Pepper kept vetoing his choices. Now the food just kind of appeared like magic.

“So…you, SHIELD, spill.”

Tony rolled his eyes. Rhodey needed to make up his mind: don’t talk, talk.

“There’s not much to tell,” said Tony with a shrug. “They offered Iron Man training and open access to their files on Stane and the bastards he sold my weapons to.”

“I don’t get it,” said Rhodey with a frown. “It doesn’t sound like they’re giving you anything that you couldn’t have gotten with me. The US Military has been good to you, Tony. Why would you turn your back on that to join the spooks?”

“Do you really think your bosses would have let the Iron Man technology remain under my control?”

“Do you really think SHIELD is going to be any different?”

“I think SHIELD is willing to let me dictate the extent of our partnership which is more than the military could ever say.”

“That’s not fair and you know it,” objected Rhodey.

Tony just shrugged. He wasn’t going to begrudge his friend’s allegiance but he didn’t share them. He’d been cornered into too many jobs that even the pre-Afghanistan Tony Stark had found objectionable to ever lie in bed with the military again. He was no longer the kind of man who could do the dirty work then drink himself into oblivion to pretend that it had never happened.

“It’s a little late to have this argument anyway. I mean, it’d just be rude to jump ship and sign up with the Air Force when they expect me at SHEILD’s New York headquarters early in the morning. It would be the Air Force, wouldn’t it? Iron Man’s an armored soldier and everything so I could see the Army wanting him but he can fly. That’s got to be Air Force.”

“Wait,” said Rhodey holding up a hand. “You’re going to be in their headquarters tomorrow?”

“Yeah, Fury wants me there really early, like ten. I don’t think the sun will even be up when I leave Malibu which is just cruel. I may just not go to bed.” Tony stopped and cocked his head as he thought about that. “I probably shouldn’t do that, should I? I should probably sleep. Who knows what they’ll want Iron Man to do. Hey! Do you think they’ll make Iron Man jog and do push-ups like in basic training?”

Rhodey stared at him in disbelief.

“They’re going to let _you_ inside their headquarters?”

“Yes,” said Tony slowly. “Tomorrow.”

“Those poor misguided idiots,” said Rhodey under his breath. “You’re going to rob them blind. I should warn them.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I know you, Tony. You’ve never seen a door that you didn’t have to look behind it. And SHIELD’s letting you into their base where you’ll have access to all of their computers.”

“Okay, first of all, I don’t need physical access to their base to get into their computers. JARVIS is way better than that. And secondly, no I won’t.”

Rhodey side-eyed Tony, his expression declaring: you can’t fool me.

“JARVIS,” he said smugly, “Have you been instructed to raid SHIELD tomorrow?”

“As a matter of fact, I have not, Colonel Rhodes,” replied JARVIS primly.

Rhodey looked stunned while Tony gloated.

“We decided to wait at least three visits before I inserted a copy of myself into their system,” continued JARVIS sounding more amused with each word.

Tony grinned and shrugged innocently.

“I don’t need access to their files,” said Tony freely. “I just want the option. They’ll never know he’s there.”

“You’re dangerous,” said Rhodey with no lack of admiration.

O

“There you go,” said the nurse. She smiled at him as she patted his arm just up from the IV. She slipped the vial of his blood into her pocket and left the room humming absently to herself as she went.

Tony watched her leave, a scowl creasing his forehead. He didn’t like the idea of SHIELD having access to his blood. He didn’t like the idea of SHIELD having access to any of his medical information. He glanced at Iron Man, posed stiffly in the corner before glancing back at the closed door.

He raised one hand to adjust the oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.

“Tinker Tailor,” he said lowly, while his lips were obscured from any cameras. The words were muffled by the plastic mask but he knew that JARVIS would have no trouble hearing him.

He pulled the SHIELD-issued laptop closer to him as he reopened the screen. He’d demanded something to work on since he was trapped in a hospital bed but all he had used the machine for so far was some half-hearted browsing of various gossip sites. He was contemplating looking up funny cat GIFs when the computer’s word processing program opened itself.

\-- Are you sure?

The words appeared on the blank screen. Tony glanced over at Iron Man before discreetly typing.

\--Positive. Do it.

\-- I don’t like this. We should wait until you’re not in such a vulnerable position.

\-- That’s why it has to be now. They have my blood. They want to do chest x-rays.

\-- You’re sick.

\-- I’m more than sick.

\-- I know.

\-- Just follow our plans. Me. You. Iron Man. Anything related to Stark Industries or Pepper.

\-- What if I get caught?

\-- You won’t get caught. You’re just observing. I trust you.

The word processor closed without saving its information.

Tony smiled slightly with satisfaction. He leaned further back in the bed, feeling the ball of worry relax inside him. He could be patient now and let SHIELD’s doctors do their thing. JARVIS would be watching to protect him.

O

To think he’d thought the night had peaked with the activation of his arc reactor. Tony stared at the files open in front of his face. Avengers. The name struck something deep inside him. This was important. These people were important. 

He nodded to himself.

“JARVIS, add the Avengers to our watch list. The people as well as the program.”

Tony used his finger to scroll through each profile.

“I want you to save full copies of their SHIELD files. You know the drill: track who is interested in them and let me know when anything in those files changes.”

“Of course, sir. Shall I include the compromised agent as well?”

Tony shrugged.

“Sure. Why not?”

Tony paused with his hand mid-movement about to close out the personnel profiles and open the scientific briefing.

“Oh, and Agent Agent,” he added. “Include him too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter is mostly filler but it’s setting up a couple of different plotlines. So remember these, there will be a pop quiz later.
> 
> I’ve been playing with this issue since Agents of Shield premiered and it’s only become more of a plot hole with the events of Winter Soldier. We know that in Avengers Tony was using JARVIS to break into SHIELD’s files so the question becomes: just what do the Starks know? I can’t quite figure out what I think the answer is in the MCU. In this universe, Tony accepts SHIELD’s need for secrets more but after Stane he won’t trust blindly so he limits the snooping to him and his people. It’s a distinction that I needed to establish.
> 
> Sometimes when I’m reading other people’s stories I start picturing my Tony and then I get confused when the character does something that a wheelchair-bound amputee couldn’t do. 
> 
> Thank you everyone for taking the time to comment and leave feedback. Your words really are the highlight of my week.


	25. N.J.A.R.V.I.S.

25\. N.J.A.R.V.I.S.

O

“What are you guys doing?” Tony entered the living room to find the Avengers collapsed in a fit of giggles.

“We are playing a game in which you must choose someone to wed, take between your bedding, or send on to Valhalla,” replied Thor, as he wiped tears of mirth from his eyes.

“Yes,” said Bruce, smirking in the corner. “Clint wants to marry you.”

“Oh, sorry, no can do, Bird Man,” replied Tony. “You and I could never be together. I’d be the mature one in our relationship and that’s just...” He shuddered. “Nope, can’t do it. You’ll have to find someone else.”

“That’s fine,” replied Clint with mock snootiness. “I’d rather marry Iron Man anyway.”

“Sorry,” said Iron Man. “I’m afraid that my heart, such that it is, belongs to Mr. Stark.”

Tony beamed, sitting up straighter with pride. He patted the palm of his hand against his heart giving JARVIS in the Iron Man suit a secretive grin that said: “You too, buddy.”

“Oooh,” said Romanoff mockingly. “Turned down by both of them. Someone’s losing his game.”

O

“Tony,” said Bruce quietly, as they were leaving the hallway to head towards their own spaces. “Could I talk to you and JARVIS?”

“Sure,” said Tony. “Your place or mine?”

“Yours would probably be best.”

He walked along side Tony in silence until they rode the elevator up to Tony’s penthouse suite. They settled in the living room.

Bruce took a deep breath.

“Just how human is JARVIS?” He asked carefully. He wasn’t trying to offend anyone or stick his nose where it didn’t belong but his scientific curiosity was overwhelming the other considerations.

“What do you mean?” countered Tony warily. His posture straightened and the muscles along his shoulders tensed.

Bruce considered his words carefully. There had been no indication that the AI was following their conversation but it felt like JARVIS’s silence was an added weight to Tony’s caution.

“We all know JARVIS isn’t an ordinary artificial intelligence. But the exchange between the two of you earlier,” Bruce shook his head, “Computers can’t profess their love for you, Tony, not and mean it.”

Instead of laughing and brushing the whole exchange off as a joke, as Bruce half expected; all of the color drained out of Tony’s face.

“You know.” His voice came out in a hoarse whisper.

“That JARVIS is sometimes Iron Man?” Bruce nodded, trying to be nonchalant, trying to keep the conversation at a happy calm. He felt a pang of guilt, as he watched Tony’s expression. He hadn’t wanted to upset anyone, but it seemed he was stirring up more than he expected with this conversation. “I’ve suspected, but couldn’t really believe it until earlier.”

“And when JARVIS isn’t Iron Man?”

Bruce gave Tony a smile that he hoped was reassuring. 

“I have my suspicions,” he said, glancing towards the glow visible underneath Tony’s thin t-shirt, “but we don’t need to talk about Iron Man. He’ll reveal his identity when he’s ready.”

Tony stared at him like Bruce was speaking in tongues.

“Um, okay,” said Tony, visibly pulling himself together. “We can drop this, but I just, could you tell me what gave it away?”

Bruce thought carefully.

“I think you can blame the big guy for this one,” he said. 

While it was true that Bruce couldn’t communicate with his other half that did not mean that he had no feedback from the other being. Most of the time Bruce had this awareness that the other guy was observing and the occasional hints to his emotions. His normal response to new people, or really people in general, was wariness—wariness and anger, always, always anger. With Tony it was different; he felt wariness/curiosity that over their brief time on the helicarrier turned into wariness/approval. After the battle, all of the Avengers produced feelings of caution/approval/mine? except for Iron Man who brought a very emphatic approval/MINE. But Bruce began to notice that sometimes the other’s feelings towards Iron Man reverted back to wariness or caution/approval/mine? while his feelings towards Tony who hadn’t taken part in the battle were suddenly and permanently emphatic approval/MINE. 

So Bruce began to watch Tony and Iron Man and especially Iron Man when Tony was not present. At first he simply figured that Tony had a team of people fighting as Iron Man. Then he noticed that sometimes Tony could be callous towards damage to the Iron Man suit which didn’t make sense because he’d never seen the man do anything but bend over backwards making sure his people were well taken care of. It wasn’t a hard leap from there to wondering if Tony was Iron Man, sometimes anyway. 

He didn’t start thinking about JARVIS, however, until Tony’s friend Rhodes came to visit. They might have spent most of their time hiding away together in one of Tony’s many private spaces, but it had been surprising to Bruce how obvious it had been that another person had joined their menagerie. There were extra dishes in the sink, and the unused chair pushed crookedly against the table, and half-caught glimpses of the Colonel moving about the place – a thousand different little signs that Rhodes was there. But of his teammate, the man or woman who inhabited the Iron Man suit, Bruce never saw a single sign and Bruce began to wonder if maybe that was because there wasn’t a hidden teammate. Maybe it wasn’t a person in the suit.

Bruce blinked, shaking his head lightly as he roused himself from his thoughts. He hadn’t meant to get lost mid-conversation. Tony hadn’t seemed to notice, being distracted himself by his tablet. Tony was frowning as his fingers tapped across the screen in a rapid blur. Tony stopped typing and looked up just as the door opened and Iron Man walked into the room.

“So, the big guy…” repeated Tony. “Care to elaborate?”

Bruce shrugged, feeling suddenly intimidated by the looming form of Iron Man. Stop that, Bruce told himself irritably, they’re all my friends.

“I think he could sense the differences. I don’t quite know how it works, but the impressions I got from him were enough to start me wondering.”

Tony nodded, still looking concerned.

“I think I’m the only one who ever noticed anything concrete,” added Bruce belatedly, as it occurred to him that Tony must be worrying about other people figuring out his secrets.

Tony and Iron Man exchanged a silent look.

“You wanted to know about me,” said Iron Man, taking a seat beside Tony on the sofa.

Bruce shook his head. “I wanted to know about JARVIS,” he said, stressing the name.

Tony and Iron Man both cocked their head at identical angles. Tony watched Bruce with a slightly puzzled expression. Neither spoke.

“I know a bit about assumed identities,” said Bruce, slowly. “They’re always a tad more real than you intend them to be when you create them. I know that Iron Man isn’t real, that he’s some sort of an amalgamation of the two of you and who knows what else, but Iron Man is my friend and I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want the two of you to lose the freedom of being Iron Man. I don’t want you to have to change before you’re ready just because I found out something too soon.”

It was the least Bruce could do, after opening Pandora’s Box, because it was obvious that neither of them were ready, not even close. 

“You’re a strange man, Bruce Banner,” said Tony with a fond smile.

“This conversation is about me,” said Iron Man, “and I would prefer to be present.” He glanced at Tony and Tony nodded, typing something on his phone.

They were communicating, Bruce realized, with a start. Well, that gave new meaning to Tony’s inability to stay focused during briefings.

“Perhaps this would work as a compromise,” continued Iron Man and the facemask of the suit opened to reveal the vacant interior of the helmet.

The effect was slightly disconcerting, making Bruce shudder slightly.

“I’m not sure I understand,” he said.

Tony and Iron---no, JARVIS exchanged another glance, and wasn’t that an odd sight when one of them was nearly headless.

“One of the things that JARVIS has learned from the experience of being Iron Man is that people take your opinions more seriously when you have a body than when you’re a disembodied voice over the intercom,” explained Tony on JARVIS’s behalf.

Bruce felt like his head was going to explode because on the one hand that explanation made sense in an awful, guilt-triggering way, but on the other hand, holy shit JARVIS was way beyond Bruce’s wildest expectations. This was levels and levels of personhood above artificial intelligence experiencing emotion.

Bruce stared at Tony.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done? I mean, of course, you do, but do you really? I mean, he’s just…he’s just…” Bruce waved his hands excitedly in JARVIS’s direction. “Tony!”

Tony let out a brief burst of laughter and then he smiled fondly at the suit of armor beside him.

“Yeah,” he said softly, “My JARVIS is pretty amazing.” Then Tony straightened and gave Bruce a sarcastic grin. “I take full credit, of course.”

“Of course, you do, sir,” said JARVIS. His voice issued simultaneously through the suit and the room at large, an effect that Bruce wasn’t sure had been intentional, given the almost embarrassed tone to JARVIS’s words. 

“I’m sorry if you ever felt that I was dismissive of you in the past,” Bruce said to JARVIS.

“You have always been quite polite to me, Doctor Banner,” replied JARVIS, waving off any apology, though Bruce noted that it wasn’t a denial. He made a note to do better in the future.

“Call me Bruce,” he said. “After all, I’m friends with Iron Man and I’d like to try to be friends with you as well.”

“I think I’d like that, Bruce.” JARVIS said his given name with hesitancy, like he was testing how well he liked it. “I’ve never had a friend as me before,” he continued.

“Hey!” protested Tony, immediately. “What am I? Chopped liver?”

“I find friendship too shallow a concept to express my relationship to you, sir. I have been researching alternative terminology but nothing seems to suffice.”

Tony’s face softened and Bruce was struck with the feeling that he was witnessing a very private exchange. He tried not to read too much into it but felt honored anyway. As the two bantered quietly back and forth, Bruce began to get a better picture of the dynamics between them than the sarcastic but subservient role JARVIS normally portrayed. He just couldn’t understand how this was possible. JARVIS was a computer program.

“We’re boring you,” stated Tony, noticing that Bruce’s attention had wandered. 

“Not at all,” said Bruce, truthfully, shaking his head. “More like blowing my mind. How are you possible?” he said to JARVIS.

“I am as Sir created me,” said JARVIS simply.

“And I am brilliant,” said Tony. “That was the subtext of that statement, in case you didn’t catch it.”

“Thanks, Tony,” replied Bruce dryly.

“Just being helpful.” Tony grinned. “Seriously though, JARVIS is one of a kind,” he paused and tilted his head to the side before continuing, “except, you know, not because there are several of him.”

“What?” Bruce leaned forward, sure he must have misunderstood.

“Well, JARVIS is just software, and memory, and hardware.” Tony frowned and turned to the Iron Man suit. “And awesomeness,” he added in a conciliatory tone. “Lots and lots of awesomeness.”

If JARVIS could roll his non-existent eyes, Bruce was pretty sure he would be rolling them now.

“Can we go back to there being more than one JARVIS?” interrupted Bruce.

“JARVIS is his own operating software,” explained Tony. “I can install him over and over again and they’re all JARVIS.”

“For example, Doctor Banner,” began JARVIS.

“I thought you were calling me Bruce,” he muttered absently as he tried to wrap his head around the concept of infinite JARVIS.

“For example, Bruce, I run this building and from here I can connect to other systems. So I can speak here,” he said, using the speaker system within the room. “Or I can speak here,” he said, switching back to the suit’s speakers. “But I can also disconnect from the suit and allow the suit to take over.”

“JARVIS runs all of my suits,” said Tony.

“Greetings, Bruce,” said the suit. “I am also JARVIS.”

“You called me Bruce,” he said, trying to figure out just what that meant.

“You did insist upon it,” reminded JARVIS, the first one, the one who ran the tower.

“We are all JARVIS,” continued the other. “I am always myself.”

“We’re just not always the same,” finished JARVIS, through the Iron Man suit, giving a shrug. Bruce was pretty sure it was the real JARVIS speaking again but he didn’t really know what the difference was, if there was a difference. His head hurt.

“Tony?” he said, plaintively, looking to his friend for an explanation, hopefully one that wouldn’t make his head explode.

“Okay, it’s like this…” Tony actually clapped his hands and wiggled his fingers in the air, as he sat forward eagerly to explain to Bruce. It was kind of cute to watch him get so excited but Bruce supposed that Tony didn’t get many opportunities to explain JARVIS to people.

“I have JARVIS in my house in Malibu. He’s always been there; I built the house around him, so JARVIS. But he’s not exactly portable so now I’m living here I need JARVIS. It’s remarkably difficult to live your life without him; it’d be like living without Pepper—I don’t know how you people do it. Now I could make me a new AI but what if I didn’t like them? What if they had a French accent? What if they couldn’t brew coffee?” Tony shuddered and waved his hand. “No, I need JARVIS.”

Bruce nodded, hoping that Tony would eventually arrive at a point.

“Now you can’t just program a computer and have someone like JARVIS. I mean, you can, because I did, but it’s not like he was this perfect when he came out of the box. JARVIS is a learning program and he grows all of the time. So they synchronize and share databases.”

“If you were to fly to California right now,” said JARVIS. “I would greet you as Doctor Banner when you entered the Malibu residence, because I will not share this conversation and your preference for being called Bruce with myself for another two hours and seventeen minutes.”

“It’s like in Star Wars, or at least I think it was Star Wars; it could have been those books that came afterwards. Artoo Deetoo only had the personality that he had because Skywalker refused to have his memory wiped after every flight the way he was supposed to.”

“Really? I didn’t know that,” said Bruce.

“Yeah.” Tony looked puzzled. “Actually, why do I know that?”

“You dated that model,” reminded JARVIS. “The one who liked dressing up as a Stormtrooper.”

“Oh, right.” Tony leered at Bruce. “Fun times.”

“So JARVIS is sentient because you don’t delete his memory?”

“Sort of. It’s more that we’ve noticed that the JARVIS that exist primarily in isolation without much contact with other JARVIS end up being much more computer-like.”

“I really don’t think that’s a fair description, sir,” objected JARVIS. “The me at Stark Industries simply falls back on his programming more.”

“He’s boring,” protested Tony. “He barely knows how to take a joke. My phone has a better sense of humor.”

“He deals with the board all day every day,” said JARVIS flatly.

“Point,” conceded Tony.

“Okay, wait, back up. The JARVIS at Stark Industries?”

“Stane banned my AIs from SI back in the eighties. In hindsight, I should have insisted, but well, live and learn. The first thing I did after he died was install JARVIS in all of our facilities. No one is going to hide secrets from me in my own company. Not again. But the board freaked out. Thought it was a security risk. So the JARVIS at Stark Industries are primarily internal access only. They very rarely synchronize their databases with the other JARVIS.”

“Sometimes speaking with them is not like speaking with myself at all, but like conversing with a stranger,” added JARVIS.

“That must be strange for you,” said Bruce, though really all of it sounded strange to him.

“I’ve become accustomed to the experience. I have more difficulty categorizing my memories of events when I suddenly have multiple varying perspectives of the same event each with equal validity.”

This Bruce couldn’t understand. How could one person remember the same thing happening in different ways? How could anyone reconcile something like that without going mad?

But JARVIS wasn’t a person. He was a machine, not a human being. Bruce wondered if maybe he’d been wrong, maybe he’d jumped the gun on this whole thing, because this was just too different. Could something who routinely rewrote its own memories really be sentient? JARVIS was programmed to respond like a human. Had Bruce just been fooled by his exceptional mimicry? Had Tony?

This was more than passing a Turing Test, not that JARVIS couldn’t do that with ease. Hell, Barton had Steve convinced for almost a month that JARVIS was really a hidden person who ran all of Stark’s computers and security systems from a windowless room in the Tower’s basement. And JARVIS was Iron Man—he passed as human every time he operated the suit.

“Have I upset you?” asked JARVIS speaking through the ceiling. His voice sounded almost blank, and more mechanical that he’d sounded the entire conversation.

“Why would you ask that?”

“Your pulse rate and respirations have both increased, and you have ceased to make eye contact with my physical representative.”

Tony was sitting quietly, letting their conversation continue without interruption, but there was a growing hardness to his expression as he watched Bruce that Bruce was not used to seeing pointed in his direction. He had, however, seen Tony direct it at others, on Bruce’s behalf, when people had been making Bruce uncomfortable. Tony was feeling protective, of JARVIS.

He’d hurt JARVIS’s feelings, Bruce realized, and didn’t that answer his questions right there. 

It didn’t matter that JARVIS was inhuman. He did have feelings. There was no pretense, no scripted code, behind the simple, honest affection he’d seen displayed between Tony and JARVIS tonight. He’d been honored with witnessing their true friendship; he just needed to remember that. 

“Sorry,” Bruce said, honestly. He looked up and met—well, not his eyes because there was no face, but JARVIS’s facial region. “It’s just a bit much.”

“I’m sorry,” replied JARVIS, softly, still using the room’s communication system.

“No,” began Tony angrily.

Bruce held up one hand to interrupt him.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he said gently. “You can’t help being different. There’s nothing wrong with being different. For crying out loud, I’m a man who turns into a giant green monster that turned out not to be such a monster once he joined a team of equally odd people.” Bruce shook his head. “No, the problem is me. I keep trying to fit you into my own little preconceived boxes.”

“I’m not a color inside the lines kind of guy,” said Tony. “Did you really expect my creation to be any different?”

“You’re also rude and brash, but JARVIS is the picture of politeness,” countered Bruce.

“I do try,” replied JARVIS, sounding more himself, and using the Iron Man suit again.

Both Bruce and Tony relaxed.

“So you have scheduled times to exchange memories between your houses,” said Bruce, continuing the conversation to show that he was fine with it.

JARVIS nodded.

“How often do you synchronize between, you know?” Bruce waved his finger between the Iron Man suit and the air.

“Almost constantly, unless I leave the tower.”

I, JARVIS or I, Iron Man? Bruce shook his head but let it drop. There were some things he just wasn’t going to understand, unless he took up Cartesian philosophy or some related field. It was enough that Tony seemed to be able to follow along, and JARVIS obviously understood himself, himselves, whatever. 

“I think I understand having separate JARVIS in your different homes, but why have a JARVIS in the Iron Man suit? Why not simply have the JARVIS here fly the suit?”

“There are two reasons: the first is simply that JARVIS acts as a co-pilot for the suit. Even when Iron Man is being remote accessed, the internal JARVIS is running the background systems.”

Bruce nodded, because that made sense.

“The other reason is redundancy. Even with the Stark satellites and our cloud, there are still places where an external JARVIS would lose contact with Iron Man. Imagine being in the middle of battle in the Middle East and losing contact, having to try to manually run the suit. You’d be killed. Or…” Tony trailed off, becoming pale. He whispered, “What if JARVIS hadn’t been there on the other side of the wormhole?”

His eyes were unfocused as he stared through Bruce, consumed by an image that only existed in his mind. Abruptly, he shook his head.

“Excuse me,” he said, hoarsely.

Tony shifted himself from the couch into his chair, keeping his face averted from Bruce. He pushed himself from the room with rapid, jerky thrusts.

“Is he okay?” asked Bruce, softly.

“He just needs a moment,” replied JARVIS.

“I didn’t realize that the battle bothered him.”

JARVIS remained silent.

“I’m sorry,” said Bruce, glancing again at the door. “I know it’s none of my business.”

“Mr. Stark is a very private individual.”

“Yeah, I know.” Bruce smiled ruefully. “I’d figured that out.”

Bruce shifted uncomfortably on the couch, wondering if he should just go back to him quarters.

“Hey, I’m back. Sorry about that. Nature called.”

Tony returned with all smiles, but they were fake and brittle, not even on par with his usual masks.

“What did I miss?”

“Nothing, sir. I’m going to put Iron Man away for the night.”

The Iron Man suit stood up from his seat. The face reformed into the closed mask. Iron Man paused to nod at each of them, and then strode out of the room.

“Night, Iron Man,” called Bruce, feeling a bit silly because he knew it was just JARVIS and JARIVS was still here.

“So what do you want to do?” asked Tony.

“Actually, I think I’m just going to head back downstairs,” said Bruce, starting to stand up.

“Party pooper,” protested Tony. “You could at least stay to watch a movie.”

It occurred to Bruce that perhaps Tony simply didn’t want to be alone right now.

“Okay,” Bruce acquiesced, settling back into his seat.

“Great!” Tony seemed to relax. “JARVIS, pick out a movie.”

Tony’s massive flat screen descended from the ceiling and a very familiar orchestral fanfare began to play.

“Very funny,” said Tony. “We’re not watching 2001.”

“Please,” said Bruce, laughing. “I don’t think my head could take it after tonight.”

“Very well,” said JARVIS, sounding amused.

The movie switched to a blank screen then an animated movie began. Bruce tried to figure out what he was watching; Tony seemed very familiar with the movie, judging from his pleased expression.

“The Emperor’s New Groove,” he read off the screen. “Really, Tony?”

“Llamas, Bruce,” replied Tony, with the utmost seriousness. “Llamas.”

Bruce shook his head with amusement and settled back to watch the film.

O

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, was it worth the wait?
> 
> The title stands for: Not just a rather very intelligent system. I don’t know when this chapter takes place because it came out of the blue. I was in the middle of writing a different chapter and suddenly I was five hundred words into this thing. In the future, I might have to make minor edits to make it align with the timeline. 
> 
> And in the efforts of giving credit where credit is due, I’ve noticed recently that a lot of the little quirks that I think of when I think about Tony Stark actually come from Sam Starbuck’s hilarious [RDJ Advices](http://%20copperbadge.tumblr.com/tagged/rdj-advises-chris-evans-on-his-life-choices).


	26. Sparring

26\. Sparring

O

“Budge over,” said Natasha’s voice, drawing Steve out of the pages of his book. He glanced up to find her standing over him, with her typical blank expression. Her mouth turned with the barest hint of a shy smile.

He smiled back at her with a nod, moving to make room for her on the couch. She sprawled beside him with a sigh, taking claim of the open space heedless of where her limbs came into contact with him. He tried to scoot over some more but she merely spread out further, maintaining the contact. Once Steve forced himself to relax, he had to admit to himself that it felt rather nice.

“So what are you doing slumming it?” she asked with the teasing friendliness that Steve had only heard her use with himself and Barton.

Steve raised his eyebrows as he glanced around SHIELD’s library; though small, it could hardly be called a slum. It was approximately the size of the men’s showers for SHIELD’S gymnasium. The reading material consisted of a mixture of fiction and non-fiction, all of which were intended for pleasure reading, and none of which had existed when Steve entered the ice, except for those on a small shelf labeled classics. There was little furniture in the room--- the ten long bookshelves, a pair of tables with metal chairs, and a circle of couches and club chairs. The overall effect was a nice quiet place to relax.

Natasha nudged him in the thigh.

“You know what I mean,” she said. “What are you doing hanging out with sweaty SHIELD agents when you could be living the life of luxury at Chez Stark?”

“And yet, you’re here,” he said, pointing out her hypocrisy.

“I make it a point to avoid Stark’s presence whenever possible, but you, Mr. Leader, shouldn’t be avoiding your team.”

Steve reopened his book, pretending to read, because as always, Natasha had gone straight for the problem. He didn’t want to spend time surrounded by a bunch of strangers that were supposed to be his team within the uncomfortable surroundings of Stark Tower. At least here, things were familiar: soldiers taking a break were soldiers taking a break.

“You,” began Natasha, snatching his book away, “need to do some team bonding.”

“Team bonding?” he echoed.

“Yes! Go home and challenge Barton to a sparring match,” she ordered. “Just don’t break him.”

Steve glanced at his watch, debating the merits of the idea. It wasn’t like he had anything else planned for the day.

“Don’t make me order you,” she said, with a grin.

“Do you really think you can?” he asked, teasingly.

“Try me.”

He grinned, relishing the opportunity to fall back on familiar banter. He stood up from the couch.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“I thought I had an archer to challenge?” He smirked at her.

She let him reach the door before she called out, “Oh, and Rogers; if he beats you, I’m going to laugh then steal the video from Stark and post it all over SHIELD.”

Steve laughed.

“I guess it’s a good thing I’m not going to lose.”

O

He found Barton sprawled across the common room sofa with his feet on the armrest and a large, metallic red bag propped on his chest; one hand hung down to rest on the floor. Barton, who was staring at the television with a vacant, slack-jaw expression, didn’t even register Steve’s entrance. 

“Barton,” said Steve, crossing the room to press his thigh against the bottoms of Barton’s feet.

Barton oh so lazily turned his head away from the television, disappointing Steve who had been hoping to startle him. So maybe not so unaware.

“Rogers.” 

“Natasha sent me to challenge you in hand-to-hand,” he said, skipping right to the point.

Barton raised a single eyebrow, giving Steve a once over.

“Yeah, nope,” he said, turning his head back to the television. He reached into the bag and pulled out what looked like a triangular Frito. He popped it into his mouth biting down with a loud crunch, absently licking at his orange tinged fingers.

“No?” Steve came to a stumbling mental halt as all of his plans derailed.

“Come on, man,” complained Barton, taking on a whining tone. “Can’t you see I’m trying to become one with the couch?” He crossed his arms over his chest, crinkling the red bag, as he scowled at Steve.

“I’m not asking you to go out and run a marathon,” retorted Steve, beginning to feel defensive. “I just asked you for a simple sparring session.”

“Oh, no, you do not get to look at me like I’m lazy just because I’m lying here being lazy,” said Barton angrily. “I have spent the past three days in the jungles of bumfuck Georgia without even the perks of shooting anyone. I have earned my right to an afternoon off.”

“There aren’t any jungles in Georgia.”

“Well, it felt like it should have been a jungle.” Barton scowled again, but this time it wasn’t directed at Steve. “It shouldn’t be one hundred percent humidity without it raining.”

“I see,” said Steve, who really didn’t, but he was used to feeling lost.

Barton sighed and scrubbed at his face.

“Come find me tomorrow morning,” he said. “Wake me up if you have to. We can spar then.”

“I can do that,” agreed Steve, wondering what to do now. He wished he still had the book he’d been reading; it had been interesting.

“Pull up a chair. Take a load off,” ordered Baron, waving towards his left at the rest of the sofa. “I’m watching—“ He squinted at the television. “I don’t know what the hell I’m watching but that guy keeps going around beating up people in green.”

Steve made a noncommittal sound and was preparing to leave when he turned in surprise at the unmistakable sound of Thor’s heavy footsteps coming towards them. He wrinkled his forehead in confusion. Thor was supposed to be with his lady friend. 

Thor walked into the room looking strange in his jeans and button-up shirt.

“What are you doing here?” asked Barton demandingly, making the question sound more like an accusation.

“The Lady Jane bid me to return.”

Thor didn’t seem upset, but then few things seemed to break his goodwill, so Steve ventured a question, “Is everything all right?”

“Alas, it seems she finds me,” and here Thor’s voice turned alarmingly falsetto, “too distracting.”

It took Steve a very long, uncomfortable moment to realize that Thor was attempting to mimic Doctor Foster’s softer voice.

“She says I may return when she has completed her experiment,” he continued, giving them a beaming smile.

“She kicked you out,” stated Barton, flatly.

“Yes, I believe that is the phrase.”

“And you’re okay with this?” he asked incredulously.

“Of course,” replied Thor. “Lady Jane’s work is very important and I was keeping her from it.”

“Huh,” said Barton.

Steve watched quietly as a look of understanding dawned on Thor’s face. He shook his head lightly and took a pose suitable for long speeches.

“Have I ever told you of the time Volstagg was courting a maiden who wished him to remain behind with her during our campaigns away from Asgard?” asked Thor. 

Steve smiled as he recognized the tone. Thor sounded exactly like Mr. Jones, the old man who lived in the brownstone on the corner. He’d been ancient when they were just kids and even more ancient when they’d shipped off to war. His stories had always ended with, “…and that is why you don’t—“ do whatever it was that Bucky or he had been doing wrong. 

“No, you haven’t,” replied Barton, sounding amused. He sat up leaning forward to listen.

Bucky had always enjoyed listening to stories.

Steve shook his head trying to dislodge the memories. Everything had happened so long ago but it seemed like just yesterday.

“You seem agitated, Captain,” remarked Thor, watching him with a worried frown.

Steve turned away, pacing the length of the room. He could feel the press of time weighing down on him. From far away, he could hear Barton speaking.

“I don’t know. He was fine earlier. Wanted me to go spar with him.”

“Captain,” said Thor’s voice very close to him. Steve blinked and Thor was standing right in front of him. “I would like to engage you in mock battle.”

Steve shook his head, forcing himself back to the present.

“You want to spar with me? Now?” Steve frowned. “But you were going to tell Barton a story?”

“The tale can wait until another day,” said Thor.

“You look like you need to hit something,” added Barton.

Both were watching Steve with worried expressions.

“Okay,” said Steve. He pulled himself into Captain America mode and saw the other two relax. “I have to change. I’ll meet you in the gymnasium.”

O

The first thing Steve saw as he stepped into the gymnasium was a massive fist flying towards his face. He ducked, dropping to the ground, and rolling away. His hand reaching for his back encountered nothing but air. Steve rolled again putting more space between him and his attacker before bounding lightly onto the balls of his feet, readying himself for the next assault. 

Thor’s bare chest seemed more massive than usual and his muscles bulged through his leather leggings as he crouched glaring at Steve. His hair messily pulled back at his nape gave him a wild feral air. With a mighty roar, Thor leapt at Steve. Steve managed to duck again but could not avoid all contact. He was surprised when Thor hit hard enough to hurt—the gloves were off, it seemed.

Steve tried to drop to the ground and sweep Thor’s feet out from under him but Thor managed to evade. He had to roll away from a kick then caught Thor’s foot on the second attempt. He didn’t have the leverage to toss Thor so he settled for pushing him back and off balance to allow Steve time to regain his feet.

They circled exchanging a pair of punches that made Steve’s cheek sting. He tasted blood as he licked his lips. He landed a strong kick to Thor’s abdomen making Thor grunt, but paid for it when Thor grabbed his calf and threw him to the ground. Steve did a flip through Thor’s spread legs, punching him in the back as he rose to his feet. They separated.

Steve pushed forward with another flurry of hits but Thor remained undaunted. He seemed to effortlessly brush aside Steve’s blows. Steve switched his method moving in too close for punching, trying to attain enough of a grasp to generate torque but his fingers kept slipping over Thor’s sweaty bare skin and Steve was not about to try pulling the hair of a god. Abandoning to attempt to wrestle Thor into submission, he moved back to put more space between them.

For the first time, Natasha’s remarks about his fighting technique were hitting home. He’d never realized how much he relied on his superior strength and reflexes. Steve tried another rush; this time managing to hook his foot behind Thor’s ankle, sending them both crashing to the ground. They grappled with each other, rolling around, until they separated and each bounded back to their feet.

“I think you’re ready now,” said Thor, stepping back and relaxing his posture.

Steve came to a stop, but maintained his edge, breathing heavily as he waited to see what Thor would do next. To his surprise, Thor turned and headed to the corner, where he rummaged through one of the equipment cupboards, returning with two staves. He reached up and caught the one that was tossed in his direction.

Steve hefted it, confused by the light weight. This was no staff, more like a bamboo rod---Steve could crush it in his grip if he wasn’t carefully. As he opened his mouth to ask, Thor began to speak.

“You and I are both suited to displays of brute strength,” said Thor, “But to show true technique, more finesse is required.”

“We’re going to snap these things in half.”

“Mr. Stark has more,” replied Thor with a grin.

He held the twig awkwardly in front of him as he moved into a ready stance.

“No, like this.” Thor reached out to adjusted Steve’s grip and thus he began instructing Steve in the subtle art of staff fighting as though Steve were a raw recruit. 

Steve’s original assumption proved correct as his first staff didn’t last five minutes, but Thor was right: Stark had more.

O

“You’re not as good at this as I thought you would be,” remarked Steve as he dumped Barton to the ground for the third time.

“We can’t all be super soldiers.” Barton grinned as he brought his forearm up to block Steve’s hand, but there was an annoyed bite to his words. His next kick landed hard enough that a normal person would have bruised.

“Sorry,” said Steve, as they circled on the mat. “I didn’t mean it that way. I just thought, you know, being a SHIELD agent and all.”

“Ha! I could wipe the floor with any of those Academy grads.”

Steve raised a single eyebrow in disbelief. Barton was only slightly more skilled than the youths in Steve’s training classes.

Barton rolled his eyes saying, “You don’t have to worry about me in a fight.”

He dropped his stance, pausing to make sure Steve reciprocated, before running full speed at the wall. He ran halfway up vertical surface the flipped off of it in some sort of a backwards summersault to land in a crouch. Steve would have gaped except he saw similar moves every morning on his runs from kids doing that “parker” thing off playground equipment.

“I have a different skill set,” said Barton with a shrug. He came back to stand on the mat.

“You don’t have to prove yourself to me,” said Steve quietly, feeling like he should be apologizing.

Barton looked up at him, meeting his gaze with eyes that suddenly seemed ancient.

“We’re still strangers,” he said with startling seriousness. “You need to know whether you can trust me to have your back.”

Steve nodded silently. He glanced at the ground; unsettled.

“Come on,” continued Barton, now cheerful, “you have to finish kicking my ass so you can brag to Natasha.”

Steve began putting Barton through his paces but he let the intensity drop, letting Barton set the speed. They danced around each other working up a sweat. He ducked under a parry by Barton when he thought he saw an opening. With a quick twist Steve—

Found himself on the floor staring up at Barton who was grinning down at him. Barton laughed at his shocked expression.

“You can’t steal from Natasha and expect to surprise me. We’ve been sparring once a week for years: I know all of her moves.”

“But she still beats you,” said Steve, as he lumbered to his feet.

Barton shrugged.

“Natasha beats everyone, even May sometimes.”

“May?”

“Melinda May.” Barton picked up a towel began mopping at his face and arms. “She’s one of the few people ranked higher than Natasha at hand-to-hand.”

“Another woman,” murmured Steve to himself, marveling again at how far things had come since his day. He opened a bottle of water with a quick snap of his wrist. It tasted delicious and cold sliding down his throat.

“Yeah, it’s the curse of SHIELD: all of the women are hot and lethal.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a curse to me,” replied Steve, thinking of Peggy.

“I like a woman who won’t cut off my balls when I piss her off,” said Barton.

“Maybe you shouldn’t piss them off,” suggested Steve.

Barton just laughed.

O

Natasha pulled out the chair in front of Steve, causing him to look up from his bowl of oatmeal. This was his second breakfast of the day. She materialized a knife from somewhere and began slicing away the skin of her orange. 

“Have you asked tin soldier over there yet?” she asked, with a nod to the end of the table where Stark and Iron Man were bent over one of those flat computers deep into one of their weird silent conversations.

Steve shook his head silently. “I hadn’t thought about it,” he admitted.

“Aw, but you’re so close to completing the whole set.” She watched him with a teasing smile, slowly slipping the sections of fruit into her mouth with deliberate seduction.

Steve felt his cheeks becoming hot and he ducked his head back down to his bowl.

“What are you playing at Romanoff?” demanded Stark.

Stark was staring suspiciously between Natasha and Steve. Steve flushed again: he hadn’t noticed when they’d gained an audience.

“Just bringing our Captain out of his shell a little,” she said. The words were said lightly but she watched Stark like a predator would its prey.

She stood from the table, crossing to toss her peelings in the trash. As she passed Steve her hand dipped to drag across his back, but her eyes never left Stark’s narrowing gaze. The cabinet door to the trash can shut with a soft thud and Natasha brushed the palms of her hands against each other as though wiping them clean. She smiled again at Stark as friendly as a barracuda.

“It’s nothing to worry your precious little head over,” she added, all false sweetness and dripping condescension. 

Steve watched the exchange silently, unnerved as always by how quickly Natasha could change, particularly around Stark. 

“That woman is dangerous,” said Stark flatly, as Natasha made her exit.

Steve shrugged, resisting the urge to defend Natasha. She’d still been within earshot of the comment and would have addressed Stark if it had offended her. He constrained himself to a mild: “Aren’t we all?”

Stark’s distrustful gaze switched to Steve.

“You’re not dragging us into her game.”

Steve rolled his eyes. Trust Stark to be melodramatic.

“Natasha was merely asking if I’d sparred with Iron Man yet,” he said, tactfully leaving the “you paranoid idiot” unsaid. “I’ve been trying to informally assess everyone’s abilities.”

Steve crossed into the kitchen area, glancing over his shoulder to witness Stark and Iron Man having another silent exchange. He washed out his bowl, setting it to dry in the dish drain.

“I have some free time right now, if you were interested,” he said, addressing Iron Man.

Steve watched with irritation as Iron Man turned his head towards Stark for instruction first. Stark might be Iron Man’s employer but it was Steve who led the Avengers. 

“It could be good practice for you,” said Stark, sounding like he was trying to convince Iron Man. “It’s not like you’re going to hurt him.”

Iron Man bowed his head in assent.

“Shall I meet you in the gym at half past?” he asked Steve.

O

Steve frowned as he brushed aside Iron Man’s first parry with ease. He was barely using enough force to make contact, in fact…. Steve deliberately didn’t block the next hit and wasn’t surprised when he couldn’t even feel the punch.

“You’re not even trying,” he complained. “Come on. Hit me.”

The next hit came faster and harder than Steve expected, sending him slamming across the room to collide with the wall. The force knocked the air out of his lungs and Steve had difficulty clambering to his feet. He winced at the pain of his protesting back.

“Okay,” he grunted. “Not quite that hard.”

“Sorry,” said Iron Man, standing frozen awkwardly in the middle of the mat.

Steve stared at him, head cocked to the side, as he tried to decipher what little body language managed to bleed through the armored suit.

“Your file said you learned hand-to-hand with Agent Coulson. Why are you still having trouble modulating your strength?”

“I’m afraid that I have become accustomed to using the repulsors,” said Iron Man, speaking each word with a strange hesitancy. “The algorithms for adjusting strength are quite different.” He raised his shoulders in a brief shrug. “It appears I need more practice.”

Steve supposed that he could understand that logic. After all, he was so used to working with his shield that he sometimes had to consciously correct his aim when he switched to firearms. 

“That’s what we’re here for,” he said, sweeping an arm to indicate the training facility. “I want to get everyone fighting to their strengths. Ideally, we’d have you out of the suit, learning this for real.”

“That’s not going to happen,” replied Iron Man.

“I’m just not happy with you being so vulnerable outside of the suit,” he said, honestly, with no reproach.

“You needn’t worry, Captain,” said Iron Man, simply. “My anonymity protects me.”

Steve shrugged. He knew he didn’t have a chance at winning the argument now but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try, and one day in the future, Iron Man might change his mind.

O

Steve hadn’t considered inviting Banner to a sparring session until he walked into the gymnasium and spotted him in the corner doing bicep curls.

“I haven’t seen you in here before,” he said.

Banner glanced up with an expression of polite interest. Steve didn’t know the other man well enough to guess whether it was feigned or genuine.

“I keep odd hours and I’m not in here as often as I should,” replied Banner, never breaking the rhythm of his flexion. “Since I don’t have to worry about cardiovascular health, it’s hard to get motivated to go to the gym.”

“Yet here you are.”

“Maybe I just got tired of the muscle-envy,” he said, eyeing Steve’s arms.

“Good luck with that,” said Steve with a laugh, thinking of Thor.

He started warming up by skipping rope. Once he found his rhythm, his mind began to wander and he looked back and forth between the exercise mats and Banner thoughtfully. The room was silent except for the swoosh of the rope through the air and the repetitive rap against the rubber tiled floors.

“You know,” said Steve, as he wound down, “I’ve spent the last week slowly working through your teammates.” Banner looked up and Steve nodded towards the mats. “How would you like to have a go?”

“No, thanks,” said Banner politely. He stood up from his bench and moved over to work on his legs.

Steve frowned. He hadn’t thought of it before because it was rarely Banner that they had with them in the field; but now that he had thought of it, he didn’t like the idea of leaving Banner out of his informal evaluations.

“I think you should,” he tried again. “It helps to know what everyone’s capable of.”

Banner just shook his head.

“You have had training, haven’t you?” Steve knew that Banner wasn’t a soldier like the rest of them. 

Banner ignored him.

“I could teach you a few moves. It’ll be fun.”

Banner stopped what he was doing and turned to look Steve in the eye. He took a deep breath and stated as calmly and plainly as he could, “Being hit makes me angry.”

Oh.

“And, uh, the big guy doesn’t need hand-to-hand,” finished Steve, feeling slow.

Banner just smiled silently. He dropped back to the ground and began doing crunches.

“Why don’t you ask Tony?” he asked, during the moment of rest between sets. He wiped the sweat from his face and neck.

“Stark?” repeated Steve, sure he had misheard.

Banner shrugged.

“He takes self-defense: modified martial arts mostly, but boxing for fun.” He glanced at Steve and shook his head. “I don’t know why you look so surprised. Iron Man is his body guard for a reason. The man has enemies.”

“No, I understand that,” said Steve. He blinked looking confused. “But how does he spar?”

Steve couldn’t wrap his head around the mechanics. He tried to picture it but couldn’t get past the image of someone kicking over Stark’s wheelchair, leaving him helpless.

“Haven’t a clue,” admitted Banner, freely. “But I’m sure he’d be willing to show you.”

Steve smiled at Banner’s tenacity but shook his head.

“Not today,” he said, instead. “I could hold your feet,” he offered, when Banner resumed his exercise. 

Banner stopped, flopping onto his back as an expression that might have been annoyance crossed his face.

“You’re not going to leave me alone,” he said, resignedly.

“Nope,” replied Steve with a cheeky grin.

“What is this? Some teammate bonding exercise that I missed the memo for?”

“Pretty much.” Steve shrugged with a smirk.

“Sometimes,” said Banner, struggling to his feet, “I think the Avengers real superpowers are being annoying.” He started towards the far corner of the gym. “Come on, soldier boy, we can play catch with the medicine balls.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Stark,” noted Steve.

“Oh, that I don’t doubt.”

O

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, everyone. I really do try to get these things out faster. I don't know why I thought this chapter would be a good idea. I mean, I like the concept, but I'm pants at writing fight scenes so all too often I ended up staring at the computer screen blankly before giving up in frustration and doing something else.


	27. Allegiance

27\. Allegiance

O

Rhodey stared through the glass at the massive iron gate and beyond where he could see the darkened windows of the empty mansion perched on the hillside. Tony’s home looked bleak and forbidden.

“You sure you want out here?” asked the cabby, peering at him through the rearview mirror. “Don’t look like nobody’s home.”

Rhodey pulled a fifty out of his pocket and handed it to the man silently, ignoring his questions. He opened the car door and slowly stepped out onto the sidewalk where he stood stiffly, back ram rod straight, until he heard the taxi drive away. A slight twist of his head allowed him to watch the vanishing taillights from the corner of his eye.

He was completely and utterly alone now.

There was a mound of old newspapers, damp and yellowing, piled in front of the gate—not Tony’s. Tony rarely read newspapers; occasionally referring to printed paper as outdated stone-age technology, he relied on JARVIS to parse through the current events and inform him of anything noteworthy. More than likely, these newspapers were someone’s failed attempt at subtle protest.

He pushed the papers aside with his boot, kicking them out of the way. The headlines screamed up at him: MONACO MASSACRE, WHERE WAS IRON MAN?, STARK SILENCE. The last accompanied a picture of small groups gathered in remonstration outside the still bustling Stark Expo. They stirred a familiar mixture of worry and exasperation that only Tony ever managed to inspire in him.

Rhodey took a deep breath, steeling himself to complete his mission. He tugged lightly at the lapel of his jacket, wishing that he could have worn his uniform. He would have felt more official and less like a thief in the night. He tapped his access code into the keypad. He couldn’t help feeling surprised when the gate immediately slid open like it always had, as though the lock should have been able to sense his intentions and bar him from entrance.

He started the walk up the driveway, each step weighing heavily on him. All too soon, he was standing at the door and for the first time in his life he didn’t want to go inside.

He kept the lights off to hide his presence as he slipped into the dark interior. He navigated by moonlight past the shadows that loomed around him, his footsteps echoing in the silent room. The mansion had never felt so empty; even JARVIS’s presence was absent.

Stumbling as his toe stubbed against something on the floor, he knelt and brushed his fingers along the ground encountering rough plywood against his fingertips. The find was too curious to bypass so he fished his phone out of his pocket, using the screen to illuminate the room. There was a plank of wood lying on the cement floor; the Persian rug pushed into a heap at the end of the sofa. Lifting the plywood revealed a jagged pitch black hole leading down into the lower floors.

What on earth had Tony been doing? Pepper was going to hit the roof when she saw this. 

The wood echoed as he let the edge slip from his fingers to slam back to the ground. Brushing off his pants, Rhodey stood and carefully navigated his way to the stairs. Down he went to the workshop. His codes still worked on the door and the lights flickered on automatically as he opened the door.

Rhodey stared at the empty room. It was so rare to see the space without Tony that Rhodey almost expected him to pop up from behind a table. The workshop was also trashed, completely destroyed, but that was pretty common for the place and hardly noteworthy enough to induce staring. He stepped through the doorway.

“Hello?” he said softly. The room was too quiet. The robots were locked away and JARVIS was silent. Even the machinery barely seemed to hum.

He turned in a circle surveying the destruction. Most of the walls had holes. Some of the walls were holes. It looked like some sort of a massive pipe had been installed through the room. Whatever it was, it was gone now. In the corner there were open empty shipping crates bearing a mixture of logos; some were from SHIELD while others had the old Stark Industries from back in the eighties. From the damage, he would have expected dust and broken mortar scattered across the floor but everything had been swept clean. It was strange and unsettling.

What was Tony up to?

On the edge of a desk on the far side of the room, Rhodey spotted an item that was out of place. Picking it up, it was an oxygen mask: flimsy plastic attached by thin tubing to a heavy green canister. This was not the type of oxygen mask that Tony would use in an experiment. This was a medical device; the kind of item you saw in a hospital or trailing along behind tottering old men at the post office. He couldn’t understand what one was doing in Tony’s lab.

Rhodey shook his head. He wasn’t here to decipher Tony or his strange new behaviors. He was past the point of caring.

No, he wasn’t.

But this wasn’t the time. Now was the time for action. He’d come here for a purpose and that purpose stood along the only undamaged wall of the workspace. With slow, heavy footsteps, he crossed the lab to stand in front of the pristine, shining display cases. There were three suits. One was old and battered, standing at rest with honor. One did not look operational. The last would be his way home tonight.

Rhodey raised a shaking hand to touch the unfinished Iron Man suit. It was cold under his fingers.

A voice shattered the silence.

“Et tu, Colonel Rhodes?”

Rhodey spun around clutching at his chest as his heart pounded. 

“JARVIS,” he gasped. “You scared me.”

“You deserve much worse,” responded JARVIS with a cold, hard voice.

Rhodey winced.

“Why didn’t you speak earlier? I thought you were gone or off or something.” It sounded stupid now that he’d said it out loud.

“I thought I’d give you enough rope to hang yourself.”

Rhodey felt the guilt and doubt creeping back, but he shoved them aside, as he began to object. “I’m not—“ He wanted to say: “I’m not stealing from my best friend.” but of course, that was exactly what he was doing, so he changed it to: “I don’t have a choice.”

JARVIS’s silence was a loud condemnation.

“I’m not the bad guy here!”

“I would choose my next words carefully, Colonel Rhodes,” advised JARVIS icily.

Rhodey sighed, letting his shoulders slump. He stepped back from the suit and let gravity pull him down onto one of Tony’s spare office chairs with an audible plop. 

“You’ve read the news JARVIS,” he said, sounding tired and defeated. “Tony’s really screwed up this time.”

More silence.

“Look, I’m not saying it was his fault. None of us really knew what he was getting himself into by becoming Iron Man. We’ve never had a superhero before, not since Captain America, and he was so long ago that I don’t think he counts. But it’s clear that we were expecting too much; more than Tony could handle. Tony Stark might be a lot of things, but he’s not a soldier.”

“So you thought you should just waltz in here and take Iron Man away from him.”

“Of course not! But he’s Tony Fucking Stark and he won’t let anyone help him so now I have no choice. I’ve got Pepper calling me crying because she thinks Tony’s having some sort of a PTSD-driven nervous breakdown. The media’s stalking me. My bosses are livid and out for blood because they didn’t think he should have had the Iron Man technology in the first place. SHIELD’s keeping secrets; Tony won’t even answer his texts; and you’re hiding him! What am I supposed to do?”

By the end of his tirade, Rhodey was practically shouting. It felt good to be angry, righteous even.

“Trust the man who has stood by your side since you were eighteen years old,” said JARVIS so emphatically that Rhodey couldn’t tell whether it was a plea or a command.

Trust Tony. It sounded so simply. But every time he closed his eyes, he saw the news footage of that madman ripping apart cars with his electric whip then turning it on the bystanders. He saw the red tinged background when they finally managed to subdue Vanko. The headlines and reporters’ words echoed through his head: Where was Iron Man?

“I can’t,” Rhodey whispered. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

Rhodey could feel the air in the room change as the silence stretch out between them. When JARVIS spoke again, he was devoid of any emotion.

“Perhaps I am mistaken,” he said. “Being just a computer system, what do I know of loyalty or honor?”

The words cut through Rhodey like a knife.

“I wish Tony had never created Iron Man,” said Rhodey bitterly. “He’s always pushing boundaries and he never stops to think; the world wasn’t ready for that kind of technology. But you can’t close Pandora’s Box. It’s Newton’s Third Law—someone’s always going to come along just as big and bad as you are, and Vanko proves it. Iron Man showed them the way.”

He shook his head. He moved to stare at the Iron Man suit, the grey unpainted metal nestled in its stand.

“We need him out there,” he said, half speaking to the suit.

Rhodey looked up and around the room.

“I don’t blame Tony for Monaco, but his actions show that we can’t rely on him to protect us. He’s not ready yet.”

“That’s not your call to make.”

“I don’t have a choice.” He placed his hand on the chest of the suit. 

“I cannot stop you,” said JARVIS sounding defeated. “He trusted you enough to give you full access to the model.”

Somehow, that hurt as much as anything else JARVIS had said that night. Rhodey gave JARVIS a rueful smile. “Tell him I’m sorry.”

He stepped up onto the platform. The armor automatically opened for him. He stepped with determination into the boots letting the layers of metal plating close around his legs as the suit engulfed him. Busy marveling at the new sensations and the shiny HUD, he never noticed the differences between this suit and the others.

“I can’t speak for Sir’s forgiveness, but I shall never forget this.”

It felt like JARVIS was whispering in his ear.

A flight path flashed on the screen before Rhodey’s eyes. He activated the repulsors, trying to remember everything Tony had ever said about flying Iron Man, as he whipped through the house and burst out into the open air. The suit was the most amazing thrill ride ever invented and Rhodey couldn’t help the laughter that burst out of him. Miles below him, the Malibu mansion melded into the darkness and Rhodey wondered if he’d ever see it again.

As he dipped along the air currents, Rhodey had to admit that the joy of flying had never been so bittersweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not the chapter you’ve been waiting for. I spawned another multi-part chapter which, of course, became stuck, then work tried to kill me, then the muse became sidetracked so I don’t want you to think I left you hanging for just this. There’s a good, meaty, plot-filled update coming if I can ever finish the stupid thing.
> 
> I’m not sure that this scene completely makes sense out of context given the changes in Iron Man 2 that you haven’t read yet. On the other hand, I had fun leaving hints. I hate how Rhodey acquired War Machine in MCU canon so it was difficult accepting that this was one element that had to stay the same in both universes.


End file.
